Sometimes lesson planning can be scary! Helping your students learn and grow is a big responsibility. Will everything go smoothly? Will your students even understand you?
A million teachers have been in your shoes before. If you’re a new teacher, don’t worry! Check out our teacher tips below to help put your fears at ease. You will be delivering amazing lessons in no time! Follow this article to learn more!
Adapt your lessons for success!
Are your students at different skill levels? Keep them engaged and challenged by adjusting your lessons. From newbies to brainiacs, find strategies to cater to their needs. Also, don’t worry if you need to throw your lesson plan out the window! It’s better to switch gears and choose activities that will genuinely help instead of struggling through material that they can’t understand
It also helps if you equip yourself with extra worksheets. A quick internet search can find fun vocabulary crosswords, listening exercises for new pop songs, and more! You can keep a collection in your locker, ready to photocopy for your class. VUS campuses have computers, printers, and photocopiers ready for you! Fun worksheets are a great way to provide your students with a brain break and reset a class’s energy level.
Save Time and Maximize Resources for Effective Lesson Planning!
Tired of starting from scratch? No need to reinvent the wheel each time! Build a collection of time-saving lesson planning resources like slideshows and videos. If you make an amazing PPT template, you can modify it later to work with a variety of lessons. As your teaching experience grows, you’ll learn to leverage textbook formats and repeat successful activities. Streamline your teaching for maximum efficiency!
If you’re still struggling, websites like education.com and twinkl have full curriculums available and are searchable by age, grade and subject matter. Slidesgo.com has free templates to help you make your presentations exciting. At VUS, we provide lesson plans for every class, and encourage you to add your own extra activities.
Did Your Lesson Go Awry? Evaluate and Improve for Success!
Imagine this: you spend an hour crafting the perfect lesson. You practice everything, double-check all of your slides, and get your timing perfected. However, at the end of class you realize nothing went as planned and you just barely survived an hour of chaos! Don’t worry, this can happen to even the most experienced teacher, and your planning doesn’t need to be wasted.
Take the time to reflect on what went well and what didn’t. Maybe you can find a more engaging video next time, or perhaps your worksheet was just a little too complex. Make some small changes and see if it goes better next time. Continue this process until teaching a lesson comes naturally.
Besides, sometimes a failure is out of your control! Perhaps your students just finished a week of tests and have zero energy left for studying, or maybe vacation is around the corner and they’re already daydreaming. Just try your best to get your lesson across!
At VUS, each campus has a Campus Manager to help you with any kind of academic support you may need. They often have many years of teaching experience, too! We also have expat senior teachers to support you as well.
What are your best lesson planning resources? Share them below to help make planning a little easier for everyone!
