1. Planning for
Teaching

2. • What have you observed other teachers
to be doing in terms of written planning?
• Have you seen instances where lack of
planning led to problems?
• Have you seen examples of excellent
planning that still seemed manageable in
terms of time and work?
A Realistic Approach

3. • As a general rule of thumb, the longer you’ve
been teaching the less written planning you will
need
• You’ll never need none!
• As a beginning teacher you’ll need more to
remind you of things like equipment required,
extension and remedial work, backup plans,
particular points to emphasise
Planning and
Experience

4. • Requirements of Education Queensland,
Queensland College of Teachers and
individual schools and departments for
year plans
• Scope and sequence documents
• Drawing on a variety of sources
• Assessment and syllabus ‘coverage’
Planning and
Professionalism

5. • Written planning well ahead of time allows your
best creative ideas to flow and be implemented
• Quality written planning is flexible enough to fit
changing circumstances and to allow you to
follow a sudden brainwave or the students’
interests
• Planning enhances flexibility, not stifles it
Planning and Creativity

6. Planning and Science Education
• Science teaching has particular planning
requirements because of the need to
obtain equipment, make requests of the
lab tech (if you’re lucky enough to have
one), book lab or computer lab time
• Long term written planning also allows
you to implement the curricular emphases
approach

7. • Typically teachers will have an overall plan for
the year in terms of which topics will be
addressed when, and what assessment will be
done
• Within that, each unit should have a clear
structure
• The actual size (e.g. number of lessons in total
or number of weeks) and shape of the unit will
vary depending on the school/level
Year Planning and Unit
Plans

8. • The curricular emphases approach enables
science teachers to balance the science,
technology and society demands of the
curriculum across the year
• Each unit has a particular emphasis:
• Nature of science
• Technology
• Science and Society
Curricular Emphases
(more soon)

9. • Drawn from Kieran Egan’s ‘Teaching as
Storytelling’
• A unit has a storyline:
• A beginning that sets up expectations or conflicts
• A middle that complicates and deepens them
• An ending that resolves them in a satisfying way
• Understanding the storyline for your unit makes
all the decisions about which activities go where
much simpler to make
Unit Planning and
Storyline

10. • Planning is a dynamic process that goes
back and forth between the syllabus,
textbooks and other resources, prac ideas,
timetable demands, new ideas and so on
• It is also dynamic during the unit – as new
student misconceptions or interests arise,
or external forces impact on teaching
• And it’s dynamic from year to year,
because each class is different
Dynamic Process