Lesson Plan Your Way
When I first started teaching, I was required to turn in two weeks of lesson plans on a six-point lesson plan template. It may have been one of the most useless wastes of time in my entire career. These documents did little to guide my instruction. They weren’t especially helpful for reflection or adapting in future years. Even if my students didn’t understand the material, or mastery took a bit longer, I was expected to continue on to the next lesson. The problem was that these lesson plans weren’t for my students. They were for administrators. It was a lot quicker for an administrator to glance at a checklist than to actually interact with a class and talk to students. Sadly, even the administration didn’t look at these plans as I learned when I eventually started turning in a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Construction lesson for every Wednesday.
Eventually my lesson planning was allowed to become useful. I’ve modified the way I plan many times over the years, but finally found a tool that had everything I wanted in an effective lesson planner. PlanBoard quickly became my preferred way to write lesson plans.
Fluid Calendar
PlanBoard allows you to set up your calendar entering start and end dates. You then go back to enter days off. You can add classes and class sections in any number of ways to match your teaching schedule. Just repeat this process at the beginning of the next year or semester and all of your lessons are moved into this new calendar. Have a snow day? No problem. Just enter it and your days shift automatically.
Flexible Approach
Each lesson can be tagged by unit of study. I prefer to plan by unit when doing long-range planning and work down towards daily plans. PlanBoard Makes this really easy. Rearranging the order of lessons is a snap – just drag and drop.
Everything You Need
Just click and type to start planning. You can even save templates. My favorite thing about PlanBoard is how easy it makes organizing resources. You can upload files, create links, connect to files in Google Drive, and more. All resources are not only saved by lesson, but they are added to resources for your instructional unit-making future planning much more efficient. You can even indicate curriculum standards with just a couple of quick clicks. PlanBoard has many state curriculum standards available, or you can upload your own.
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