I enjoy creating hand-on lessons. My philosophy is, students need to practice doing what they learn.  I take the acronym SWBAT to heart.  Most of my fun comes from figuring out ways this can happen. That being said, writing all of that out can become time-consuming. Especially when I have a caseload of students with unique needs. I want to ensure that their supports are readily available for me to reference and any other teacher that works with them.

Common Curriculum is a web based lesson planning application that I prefer to use.  It is an amazing way to collaborate, too.  I can print it out, or share the link to my entire plan book, one lesson or, just send one assignment to a teacher or parent.  I can easily individualize it for specific students by adding a link to their supports and accommodations. It is so flexible! Before, it seemed like an eternity to do a week of planning.  Now, I may do a few tweaks here and there, but nothing like before. I love using Common Curriculum.  Once I have my resources with some minor tweaks as we move along, I can plan for the semester in a few days.

A good lesson plan keeps me organized. It's important to make sure I'm on target. I can share the objectives of the lesson plan with my students, so we can work together to meet them.  Clearly written objectives allows me to determine measurable progress towards IEP goals.  I do need to allow for changes. That's essential to working with students with disabilities. A lesson plan can help if we get too far off track. I'm more confident in my teaching with that preparation behind me.

Lesson planning is different depending on the teacher.  My process works for me, but may not work for another teacher.  If I'm not using Common Curriculum, I use a Word doc lesson template that allows me to "Double Plan".  Double planning involves the gradual release of responsibility back to the learner. That focuses on what the students should be doing along the works well for as a special education teacher. My instruction is geared towards the objectives and the measurable steps that show student progress toward meeting IEP goals.