The Best Use of Common Planning Time in the "Post-Pandemic" Era
This post is part of a three-part series on Making Every Minute Count: 3 Ways to Address Pandemic Learning Loss This Fall, sharing best practice strategies that can be implemented now in elementary schools to make a big difference for students this school year: providing extra-time intervention, rethinking grade-level common planning time, and creating micro-schedules for reading. With tweaks to the elementary school schedule, these best practices can be facilitated and can have immediate impact on student learning.
The pandemic changed everything, including the best use of common planning time. As teachers work to address summer slide and learning loss this fall, rethinking common planning time is more important than ever.
Rethinking How Common Planning Time is Used
The research is clear. Teachers planning together, when done well, can help improve teaching and learning. That said, there are many ways grade-level teams use this time. Teachers benefit from the opportunity to review data to drive instruction; collaborate on lesson planning; discuss assessments, identify interventions, and group students according to need; and learn from talented and veteran colleagues. These are all thoughtful uses of their time together, but in the “post-pandemic” era, one use becomes of paramount importance.
To maximize the impact of common planning time on summer slide and learning loss, consider implementing these three best practices:
Focus on lesson planning that incorporates scaffolding
Teachers are struggling to teach grade-level content (which they must) to students who missed prior-year lessons or haven’t yet mastered key skills. Scaffolding – the inclusion of brief, about 10-minute long, mini lessons addressing needed prior skills – can help.
Few teachers or purchased curricula have a library of ready-to-go scaffolding lessons. Don’t require every teacher to plan these on their own. Better to dedicate much of each common planning time to this critical task.
Use PLC time to select power standards
No teacher can reteach every skill and lesson that was missed or misunderstood over the last two years. Power standards can help folks feel less overwhelmed. This set of critical, first among equals, standards and skills should be the focus of group-developed scaffolding.
Bringing grade-level teachers together for common planning time is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to set the power standards and to focus lesson planning on scaffolding that teaches power standards.
Include coaches in PLC time
As teachers collaborate on lesson planning, including instructional coaches in the conversation can help craft better lessons. Coaches can bring an important perspective about how to scaffold and what should the power standards be and can help teachers collectively improve their practice and lesson plans. In addition to one-on-one support, bring coaches into these group planning sessions to leverage their talents and perspective more fully.
Rethinking How Common Planning Time is Created in the School Day
Given the tremendous value of common planning time for teachers, it makes sense that such time would be built into the school day, but it can feel like a challenge to find the time.
Want to automatically create grade-level common planning time in the school day? Scheduling specials at the same time across each grade while staggering specials for different grades throughout the day makes it easy to find common planning time for teachers. When specials are common across a grade level, so are teacher preparation periods. This provides time for grade-level teachers to plan together as well.
By creating a schedule that facilitates regular, grade-level common planning time for teachers, and by incorporating the best practices of including coaches and focusing lesson planning on scaffolding and power standards, schools can leverage this valuable practice to do more for teachers and for students.
