Conferencing about lesson planning

Conversations with beginning teachers — both before and after teaching — present powerful opportunities for learning. Experienced teachers can help beginners anticipate what parts of a unit are likely to cause difficulty for students and can help novices head off management problems before they start. These conversations may also provide the chance for experienced teachers to learn with their mentees about new content or teaching techniques.

Discussing a teacher’s plans after observing a lesson can help beginning teachers to see the connection between lesson planning and student behavior in the classroom.

Here are some tools that might help you conference with beginning teachers about planning:

Tools for daily planning:

Design a template for lesson planning

Questions to ask during lesson planning

Evaluating styles of learning activities

Choosing challenging learning activities

Observing the mental challenge of learning activities