A Lesson Plan Template Written for a Different Subject Is Usually a Waste of Time
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses why one-size-fits-all lesson plan templates fail teachers and why administrators should stop requiring them across all subjects.
Key Takeaways
- Templates rarely fit specific subject needs - A template created by a math teacher doesn't serve an English teacher or a band director
- Collecting lesson plans is often unnecessary - Administrative review of templates is frequently superficial or nonexistent
- Teachers should prepare in ways that work for their subject - Effective preparation looks different for every discipline and teaching style
- Template requirements waste teachers' time - Filling out required formats takes time away from meaningful preparation
Transcript
I loathe lesson plan templates because they never seem to fit your needs as a teacher, right?
They never seem to actually take you through the things you need to think of to teach a lesson in your subject.
And you can always tell when a lesson plan template was written by somebody who teaches something else.
Like if they teach math and you teach English, like you can tell as an English teacher, this was not written by an English teacher.
This was written for a math class.
And I don't know what it is about the people who make rules about stuff like this and make policies about stuff like this that makes them think that you can use the same template or the same process or the same thinking to plan lessons in totally different subjects, right?
Like if you are a band director, your lessons look very different than my lessons did as a sixth grade science teacher.
And I think this intention of making everything the same across the board just smacks into reality and doesn't work all that well.
So I don't think we should be requiring templates.
I don't think administrators should be collecting lesson plans.
I think everybody should be prepared for class in the way that makes the most sense for them.
If the curriculum already does a lot of that planning, great.
If you're doing your own planning, great.
But do that in a way that makes sense for you and for what you specifically teach and what you need to think through in advance in order to teach that effectively.
I think all of these requirements that people fill out templates, like maybe when you're in college learning how to be a teacher, maybe that's a helpful exercise.
But I think once you graduate, once you have an actual job as a teacher, this is a huge waste of time to fill out a template.
It's a huge waste of time for somebody to look at it.
So usually nobody does look at it.
Let me know what you think.