Class 5 – Lesson Alignment

This week I really enjoyed learning about how the different school systems manage sharing lesson planning tools (i.e. Canvas in Chesterfield, and Google Drive Toolbox in Henrico) and how some schools see greater pressure from the SOLs in their lesson planning choices. As I am winding down to my final few classes in the UR program, it is nice to get a glimpse of some of the realities we will deal with as teachers as we enter our real working lives. Hopefully, I will end up in a school that understands the importance of front-loading instruction and of taking time to incorporate primary and secondary documents into social studies instruction, but it is good to be prepared and know that you may not always have the flexibility to teach as you wish that you could.  I also really enjoyed the opportunity to watch the Harriet Tubman lesson plan video and discuss as a group which similarities and differences we see to the elements of the UR lesson plan. I have often thought that it would be helpful to get a chance to share and discuss the lesson plans that we develop for our assignments with other members of the class, but this type of discussion has not been frequently incorporated into the teaching classes that I’ve had so far (outside of a few of microteaching experiences). For me, I learn a lot about my own lesson planning by reviewing other lesson plans available online, and I think it is very valuable to have a chance to hear the thoughts of others on what works best and what may not be effective in a lesson plan. I know there is a lot of material to cover so it may not be possible, but I would love the opportunity if possible to discuss and share the lesson plans that we create with other in our classroom if time allows so that we can receive and give feedback to one another and discuss what challenges we had in our lesson planning.