As a high school chemistry teacher, you know how time-consuming lesson planning can be. And the clear desire to speed up lesson planning! It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the constant need to create lesson plans, especially if you’re planning week to week like I did my first year. Not only that, the desire to actually create good lessons…
However, by taking the time upfront to organize your standards and create unit plans, you can drastically reduce the time spent on weekly lesson planning. Once I started planning this way, I was able to leave at the bell everyday. This approach not only speeds up the planning process but also frees up more time for you to focus on what really matters: creating engaging and effective learning experiences for your students.
Start with Organized Standards
The first step to speeding up your lesson planning process is to ensure your standards are well-organized. And this can be hard to do with NGSS. This means breaking down the curriculum into manageable chunks and deciding what needs to be covered and when. By categorizing your standards into specific units, you’ll have a clear roadmap of what to teach throughout the year. This eliminates the guesswork when it’s time to plan your lessons on a weekly basis. It also ensures that you’re covering all necessary content. Use this free NGSS Decipher document to help you decide which standards go into each unit in your chemistry class. Using this as a starting point will certainly help you to speed up your lesson planning in chemistry.
Create Unit Plans
Once your standards are organized, the next step is to develop unit plans. A unit plan is essentially an outline of what you will teach over a specific period. It includes the key concepts, skills, and objectives for the unit, along with an approximate timeline. By having a unit plan in place, you’ll know exactly what needs to be taught each week. Instead of starting from scratch each Sunday night, you’ll simply refer to your unit plan and fill in the details. Like literally, copy and paste. It’s easy because of this next part.
Simplify with a Lesson Plan Template
With your unit plans in hand, lesson planning becomes a breeze. Using a simple lesson plan template can further streamline the process. This template should include all the essential components of a lesson, such as objectives, materials, activities, and assessments. But most importantly it should be modeled after your observation rubric. (Then observations are zero stress – I promise!) By following the same structure each time, you’ll be able to quickly plug in the details for each lesson without spending hours on planning. This consistency also helps to ensure that your lessons are thorough and well-organized. Plus your students know what to expect each day. No curve balls.
Focus on Curating Learning Resources
By saving time on the planning process, you’ll have more time to devote to creating and curating learning resources. This is where you can really enhance the quality of your lessons. Whether it’s developing engaging worksheets, finding hands-on activities, or incorporating technology, the time you save on planning can be redirected to making your lessons more interactive and effective. And I don’t know about you, but this is my favorite part of teaching. Well one of them. I love getting creative and turning chemistry into something fun each day!
How My Course Can Help
If you’re ready to take control of your lesson planning process and save valuable time, my course can guide you through the steps. I provide a step-by-step approach to organizing your standards, creating unit plans, and using a simple template to streamline your lesson planning. By the end of the course, you’ll have a system in place that allows you to plan quickly and efficiently, giving you more time to focus on what you love—teaching.
