Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I unexpectedly came down with flu-like symptoms and needed to get tested for COVID-19. As a result, I experienced a small peek at what it’s like for teachers to still do their jobs from home when they are feeling unwell.<\/p>\n
I was scheduled to teach a lesson on both Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Because I was unwell, I missed both of these days of in-person teaching. Teachers still need to submit lesson plans for TTOCs when they are ill all the time. Because I also still had to send in my lesson plans for these days, I saw a little bit into the world of a teacher.<\/p>\n
On Monday and Tuesday night, I made sure to submit my learning plans to my SA for the following days. During these times, unfortunately the lesson plans were not submitted early enough — Karen and I ended up calling each other the night before to finalize plans (so as a teacher candidate<\/em>, I should have prepared these learning plans in further advance).<\/p>\n The first learning plan<\/a> I prepared was an inquiry activity, during which students responded to a video on climate change and then chose a topic from a choice board to conduct research into that topic. They had a short lesson on reliable online sources, and had a response sheet on Google Classroom ready for them to fill in once they found an online source of their choice.<\/p>\n The second learning plan<\/a> I prepared tagged off of the inquiry activity from the day before. Students presented their learning on their chosen topic on a Google slide and then did a brief speaking activity, sharing their ideas with the whole class. They then reflected on their oral presentation skills.<\/p>\n On both of these learning plans, Karen commented on my Google document to give feedback on how the lesson went in practice. This was so helpful! I noticed that I always underestimate how much time various activities will take. I also noticed that some of my ideas involved a bit too much work for the teacher to coordinate slides.<\/p>\n As TTOC learning plans, my lessons were a bit too complex. But because I knew Karen’s teaching style well, I knew she would be able to put my plans into actions excellently. Thus, I was designing complex learning experiences instead of simple work block activities.<\/p>\n Last week I was in-class on two given days when a TTOC had to step in while Nathan was away, and this week I experienced the other side of that (in a way). As a student, it’s easy to assume teachers have it so easy when they take a sick day — but the reality is so different. Despite being ill, teachers are still responsible for their students’ learning.<\/strong> They know the skill level and learning preferences of their class. They know where the unit is at. Thus, learning plans still need to be prepared and sent to the TTOC or person taking the teacher’s place for the day.<\/p>\n For this reason, most teachers on sick days either give students a work block to continue on projects or do independent learning, or refer to one of their emergency lesson plans.<\/p>\n During our first weeks of our professional year, the secondary cohort created an emergency lesson plan. (I talked about this emergency lesson plan briefly in an earlier blog post<\/a>.) In this emergency lesson, students conduct an independent research project<\/a>, which requires them to conduct their own research and exploration of a category of media, and use evidence and observations to analyze what they observe and find the message\/purpose of the text based on context. They will then construct an analysis project in response. My hope with this emergency lesson plan was to give the TTOC as little responsibility as possible, and that is the case with most lesson that teachers prep for their sick days.<\/p>\n Yet with the lesson plans I submitted this weeks, there was more complexity, teacher involvement, and discussion facilitation required for my “TTOC” (SA). This would set apart my practice to that of a real teacher’s. Yet the principle is still the same: even while sick, teachers are responsible for the learning and development of their students. The teacher’s job is to plan for instruction and learning regardless of whether they are in the classroom or not.<\/p>\n I learned this week the immense importance of preparing learning plans and units further in advance. When I was unwell, I found I barely had the energy to design a learning plan, make a Google slides, and think about my unit. If I had prepared the learning prior to the Thanksgiving weekend, I would have had far less to do, and my discussions with Karen in the comments of my Learning Plans (follow the links above to see her annotations) would not have had to take place the night before her teaching.<\/p>\n This learning experience taught me to set a new goal for myself: I would like to plan my learning experiences\u00a0at school<\/em> the week before the lessons take place. Doing work at school instead of at home will make my working time more efficient and also give me more space to rest when I am at home. Furthermore, if I finish my plans ahead of time, I won’t have anything to worry about over the weekend to prepare for the learning. (Of course, up to this point, my SAs have not known where their units would go in time to let me know, but now that we have prepared more in advance, pre-planning will be more possible.)<\/p>\n Currently, I am planning an entire unit on technology in English 9. I have already mapped out all the learning standards and sections of the unit, and now I am planning individual learning plans. Having a pre-prepared unit outline ahead of time is helping me look well ahead and plan individual lessons more efficiently.<\/p>\n Professional Standard #5: Educators implement effective planning, instruction, assessment and reporting practices to create respectful, inclusive environments for student learning and development.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I unexpectedly came down with flu-like symptoms and needed to get tested for COVID-19. As a result, I experienced a small peek at what it’s like for teachers to still do their jobs from home when they are feeling unwell. The artifact. I was scheduled to teach a lesson on both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":925,"featured_media":278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning-log","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/925"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/mssommer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why it matters.<\/h3>\n
Next steps.<\/h3>\n
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