There's a Plan for That

There is such value when it comes to teachers on a team being on the same page. But the idea of team planning is also FULL of faulty assumptions of what that may look like. I’ve done team planning several ways over the years, and no one size fits all exists. This post isn’t going to be a “this is the best way” kind of post, but rather, it will be a breakdown of some different forms and styles that team planning might look like, as well as some of the perks and struggles that come with them, and some workarounds to help avoid issues that may arise. 

One common format team planning can look like is when teachers divide content to plan between themselves, then come together and share the results. For example, one teacher may prepare math, one teacher for science/social studies, and one teacher for ELA. Each teacher would be responsible for adding their subject information into a shared lesson plan template, and voila— lesson planning is done!

What’s great about this method is your planning can play to people’s strengths, and it’s easier to have better standards-aligned lessons and activities when you’ve got more time and energy to put into that aspect of your plans rather than trying to know the standards as deeply for all subjects when planning. It’s also nice that it can be a time saver because we all know the time-drain lesson planning can be among all the tasks a teacher has to do in a day.

Some potential drawbacks of this method of planning are that it can lend itself to cutting corners on meeting up and discussing a plan together. If all your plans are typed up for the week to turn into admin, it can be easy for “Hey, this week, our planning time is really short; want to just read over the lesson plans and let each other know if we have any questions” kind of conversation to happen. When this happens, everyone is not actually on the same page with what the plans are intended to look like. It defeats the purpose of having grade-level plans if there isn’t much uniformity in how it’s being taught.

In my experience, if you’re on a team where several teachers bring forward more experience than one teacher, steamrolling is also a potential during a team planning session. Something often overlooked is that the effectiveness of the different lessons and activities is DIRECTLY affected by the teacher’s ability to manage tasks and classroom behaviors.

At the beginning of my teaching career with team planning, my teammates often incorporated scoots into their lessons. I dreaded scoots because I didn’t have the tools in my metaphorical teacher toolbox at that point that I needed to manage a traditional scoot successfully, and it became a stressful free-for-all in my class. These scoots bordered between chaotic and downright unsafe depending on the day, and honestly, I don’t think there was much functional learning during those lessons. (If you’re looking for a deeper dive into what Scoots are and different ways you can incorporate them in your classroom regardless of where you are on your teaching journey, click HERE!)

The moral of the story with the scoots, and the reason for me mentioning them right now, is to show that I felt trapped into using them in my lessons because they were part of the lesson plans that we had come up with as a team, and therefore part of the lessons submitted to the administration for review and approval. Even when I brought up concerns about doing the scoot in my classroom, the response wasn’t to change the activity; it was critique for what I was doing wrong with the scoots. This isn’t to say that those critiques were wrong or off base because I was doing them wrong. They were failing due to my inability to maintain classroom behaviors, but ultimately, telling me what was wrong at that stage wasn’t enough for me to fix them. There are no substitutions for time other than time itself. 

Another form of team planning is when a team brings ideas for different subjects. As the lesson plans are created, the team works together to determine forms of differentiation that best meet the needs of all scholars in their classrooms. From a solid educational practice point of view, this way of team planning is particularly beneficial. It’s common knowledge that not all people have the same base knowledge, learn in the same way, or benefit from the same lesson types. Planning for differentiation helps to meet and address everyone’s needs and ultimately will promote the best growth throughout the year. Something that can be difficult about this type of team planning is time; the goal of team planning is to simplify the amount of time and energy put into lesson plans each week, and in the beginning, this takes A LOT of time to do well. What can be helpful is to compile a base list of different differentiation techniques that can be added to lessons to help support diverse learners’ needs. (If you don’t have time to create a list, don’t worry; I’ve done it for you. Join my email list so you can have the passcode and access your free download today!)

A simplified example of this may be that research has shown us that English Language Learners benefit from the visual representation of concepts being taught; including visual aids in a lesson would be a way to help add differentiation for those students. Or include sentence frames already planned out in your lesson to be used on the board to help add support for your ELL scholars. If you have created a master list of supports and growth opportunities, then you can use that list to help develop robust lesson plans designed to meet your scholars’ needs best. (Would you like a free downloadable starting point for differentiation ideas and growth opportunities to add to your lesson plans? Click HERE to join my email list and get access to your copy today!)

As an upper elementary teacher, the schools I worked at departmentalized the grades I taught, bringing about team planning and becoming my favorite. I enjoyed being able to team plan where our conversations focused on best meeting the scholars’ behavioral, social, and emotional needs we shared throughout the days rather than focusing on the academic content. Not that we couldn’t bounce educational ideas off of each other, because we were. However, in many cases, our academic conversations were more focused on how our lessons in the individual subjects could complement the teaching in other content areas.

For example, when my fourth-grade scholars began to work on measurement and conversions, my teammate who was teaching science specifically pulled science labs that incorporated measurement as part of the learning objectives to provide the students with more hands-on measurement application and practice! This could even be extended past the boundaries of what you view as your “Team” when it comes to planning; I have often talked to art teachers about projects that include symmetry or geometry or music teachers about activities that focus on identifying patterns. It can be neat for students to have a web around them that allows the skills they are practicing in one classroom to come alive and gain meaning from another partner’s classroom! 

When a student is having a difficult day in one class period, it can be helpful for the next teacher to know and have a plan prepared to allow for an emotional “reset” to help turn the student’s day around. Having multiple educators all working and planning together for a child’s well-being can also be helpful when it comes to parent-teacher conversations because there can be ideas to help a student succeed that have been done in one classroom that may haven’t been thought of in another yet. It also allows for a less biased perspective on classroom behaviors because they are observed through multiple lesson types and educators’ eyes. One of the significant drawbacks of this type of planning, however, is that the individual content areas are very much on their own for the bulk of the planning, and this can lead to some stagnation of ideas and best practices being included in the classroom. This can be especially noticeable if you are on a team with several beginning teachers, as they sometimes have different depths of background knowledge and experiences to pull from to format their lessons. 

These are just a few of the many different team planning styles you may use. As you dive into the pros and cons of various planning styles and arrangements, you must maintain sight of the purpose of lesson planning in general. Choose the planning style that meets the best needs of your planning and your scholars, not just which style is the quickest and easiest to check off as a compliance piece.