Lesson Planning Templates: 12 Teachers Share What They Actually Use
A survey of 12 experienced K-12 teachers on the lesson planning templates they use day-to-day. The shared structure, the variations, and what new teachers should adapt rather than adopt.
More Time for Planning Would Be Nice. What Formats Do Teachers Actually Use and Why Are Districts’ Formats Often Ineffective for Supporting Instruction?
The Required Versus Real Distinction
First, most teachers have two planning systems—the formal district mandated planning format and their actual day-to-day use of planning for teaching. Secondly, there is a distinction between Required and Real planning formats. For instance, a Required format would be a detailed district-mandated formal plan that a teacher spends considerable time completing. The Real format, on the other hand, would be the teacher’s simplified notes regarding teaching such as bulleted lists, annotated text, or running documents for organizing weeks or units of study (pick one).
Most of the formal plans that were developed for required use were never read by anyone. It was teacher’s planning notes that were actually used to teach the class.
What Teachers Actually Used
While individual teachers ran vastly different types of formats for their daily planning, they generally contained straightforward details on the scope of instruction, including topics, activities and time allocations. Teachers also described keeping annotated copies of their textbooks, filling the margins with notes that described how they would teach particular lessons or adapted an original lesson for their class. A number of teachers developed what they described as ‘running records’ and used these to organize particular weeks or units of work, recording daily notes as they developed lesson plans in more detail for subsequent days.
While different teachers kept different types of formats for their daily planning, all of them were simple and could be changed quickly.
The Time Cost of Required Formats
The time required for teachers to complete required formal plans ranged from 30 minutes to an hour beyond the actual planning. None of these formal plans were read by anyone. They were completed and then were filed away after the actual lessons had taken place. I have kept a small notebook throughout my teaching years and much of this article has been written from it.
“First I have to write the formal plan and then the real plan will feel formal,” said one teacher quoted in the study. She stopped pretending that she was using her formal written plans for planning. She said they were just another piece of paper.
The Plan-Versus-Practice Gap
The biggest Plan-Versus-Practice Gap is that most teachers don’t actually teach what they wrote down in their plan. There are so many things that happen in the classroom that can cause teachers to deviate from their plan. For example, a student might ask a question that causes the teacher to go off on a tangent. Sometimes the teacher might realize that there isn’t enough time to finish the lesson as planned. The teacher might get a read from the classroom that tells them that the students aren’t ready to move on to the next part of the lesson. In general, written plans are used as a starting point for the lesson and then the teacher can adjust as needed from there.
The Useful Functions
Even though formal planning was an inefficiency, there were several things that planning did for teachers that were of value. For example, planning helped surface gaps in teachers’ thinking about how to teach before they taught it. Formal planning, written out, created a record of teachers’ instructional planning that they could refer back to in subsequent years. Finally, formal planning was sometimes shared with colleagues, and those formal plans served as a basis for teachers to provide feedback to one another.
More critically, administrators must make sure that the amount of time spent planning in required formats serves the functions that administrators require teachers to plan for in the first place. A review of studies in several states indicates that in terms of teacher satisfaction, schools that have either decreased the required time teachers must put into planning documents or removed requirements altogether have not seen decreased student achievement or quality of instruction, while the reverse is not true. This is because such reforms redistribute the time formerly required for planning in unwanted ways and redirect it for teachers to use for improving their teaching.
The Administrative View
These administrators are trying to do a number of things through formal planning: ensure instructional coherence, support teacher growth and development, provide evidence of planning for evaluations. While I am not saying that any of these goals are impossible to achieve through formal planning, the current research would suggest that, for most teachers, formal planning does not accomplish these goals.
I have also seen these requirements fail in my own travels. But there was one model that really resonated with me.
What Districts Could Consider
There are several important things for school districts to think about regarding planning requirements: First, written planning formats should reflect how teachers actually use them for planning; second, the amount of time required to complete written planning formats should correspond to the functions those formats support; third, administrative purposes for written planning formats should be addressed in ways that do not require teachers to duplicate planning that they already do for teaching and learning.
Districts need to redirect teacher time from complying with planning requirements to improving teaching and learning. If a district has made instructional improvements and teacher satisfaction has increased when they streamlined planning requirements, then there likely has not been a negative impact on instructional quality.
What Teachers Should Know
Keep your formal planning for administrative functions and spend your time actually thinking through a plan for your teaching. Your formal plan can just serve the administrative purpose it was created to fill while you work through a plan that will actually serve to inform and guide your teaching. Don’t make people believe that you are using the formal plan for planning for your teaching.
The Broader Pattern
Administrative oversight of teaching is in conflict with teachers’ need for professional autonomy. Administrators can require teachers to plan and report on their teaching, but such compliance does not in itself ensure that teachers are doing a good job of teaching. If administrators do not interfere with teachers’ decisions about what and how to teach, then there is a risk that teachers will have no coordination among themselves and that students will experience inconsistent instruction. Institutions that strike a balance between these two extremes are more likely to be effective than those that opt for either extreme of administrative control or professional autonomy.
Editor’s note: This article was reviewed against primary sources and peer-reviewed research where applicable. Quotes from teachers, administrators, and researchers were verified before publication. If you find an error or have feedback, please reach out through our Contact page. See our Editorial Standards and Fact-Checking Policy for our complete review process.
