Dialogue #2: Planning, Practice, and Depth of Instruction

Co-planning with you has been a big learning experience – I have a hard time with thinking on the fly in front of the class. I think this is because I have yet to develop those set of skills we always talk about. I like to have some structure to fall back on because I honestly don’t know how to keep a lesson going without it. I also should have been more honest with myself – and with you – about my comfort level with the content.

Co-planning with you has been a HUGE lesson for me, as well, and again I offer my sincere apologies for failing to think through your needs as a student for this week’s lesson.  I’ve come to a place in my practice where I have what sometimes feels like an instinct for my own lessons and pacing; as you’ve seen, I make a lot of adjustments on the fly and freely shift up lesson structure daily, sometimes from period to period and sometimes even in the middle of the lesson.  

I teach STUDENTS more than I teach CONTENT, and that tends to mean I’m very interactive – I do a lot of room comprehension checks, and if things aren’t going well, I have a few different ways in which I’ll modify to meet what the room seems to need.  There are ways in which this approach is very weak – the same lesson very rarely looks the same way twice, and I often have a hard time articulating why.  In many ways, it’s one of the reasons I thought this blog might be useful for BOTH of us – I wanted to be pushed to articulate my rationale for my strategies, and I also wanted you to have a forum where you could really pin me down about how and why I teach the way I do.

Structure is always a place of strength to start from, and it’s definitely where I began (or at least, in a much more structured place than I am now).  I had a conversation this morning that made me think of you – Ms. H was complaining that she always “overplans,” then never makes it as far as she imagined she would.  She’s in her first year, and my immediate thought was “of course not!”  Nobody makes it through what they imagine they will in a single period – there are a couple of practice-based lessons you’re in the process of learning in your first year:

1. You’re learning what works for YOU;
2. You’re learning what works for your KIDS.

Structure’s CRUCIAL for your first year for BOTH reasons.  First, in order to locate your own strengths in the classroom, you need to try a lot of strategies out.  Some will work well for you; others, even if they seem like a hole in one, may prove to be awkward or just really hard for you to implement.  Probably around 10% of any given first-year lesson will be rock-solid, another 10% will have enough promise that you’ll decide it’s worth working on, and perhaps 10% will turn out to be something really effective for your kids (whether or not you enjoy it or feel comfortable working with it). 

That leaves 70% of your lessons that will be pure experiment – and if you don’t conceive of it that way, you’ll probably give up.  Don’t expect what you do to work – try things out, SEE if they work, and (as much as possible) forgive yourself for what DOESN’T.  Remember that growth mindset is as important for YOU as it is for your students – the 10,000 hour rule doesn’t apply to just ANY kind of practice, but ERROR-focused practice.  MAKE MISTAKES and LEARN, or be a perfectionist and QUIT.

Again, my mistake was in planning a lesson I could run in my sleep and asking YOU to run it.  I was relying on the 30% that have become my 90% - the things I learned through experience I could do and have refined so that they are easy for me and effective for my kids.  You need to go through your OWN process to find YOUR 30%% - the things you’re good at and kids learn from.  That will require a ton of practice, which means some very concretely planned structure.  Find some stuff

You mentioned that we had originally imagined a one-day lesson for evidence errors; student comprehension levels required four to properly address the issue, and I guarantee we’re not done with the skill – mastery demands repetition!  The key is realizing that speed of coverage is always less important than DEPTH of mastery; though there are some skills that are quick (like citations), ANY writing or reading skill of merit tends to also train critical thinking, if you take the time to really address it with the kids.  If you sell it right, kids will always dig critical thinking, so teaching ONE skill WELL can not only improve a vast array of attached academic skills (any improvement in critical thinking abilities will inevitably affect a student’s overall learning), but also increase engagement!