Course name: Weekly Planning Course name: Weekly Planning Organization: Classroom Course Staff: Firki by Teach For India Course Language: English

Throughout the course, you will see various symbols, here’s a guide to help you navigate the pages. Feel - What is your current reality? What is the situation in your class, school or organization right now? Imagine - What do you believe is possible? What would success look like? Do - What are some actions you will undertake to go from the feel to the imagine? Share - How can you share with others, what you have gained from this course? Expand for more information Audio

Overview of the Course Through this course, we will understand why we need to have a weekly plan, the components of a weekly plan and how it all comes together over the duration of a week. Section 1- Feel: How do we currently plan for a week of instruction?: In this section, we will reflect on our current practices when we plan for a week of teaching in the classroom. We will also examine the need to plan for a week of instruction. Section 2- Imagine:What is the criteria of an effective weekly plan?: We will explore the criteria of an effective weekly plan and see how it comes together over a week to make it a week of meaningful instruction. Section 3- Do: How can we create our own weekly plan?: In this section, we will explore ways to put all the information we have learnt so far together to form a weekly plan of our own. Section 4- Share: How can we share this message with other teachers around us?: In this section, we will examine ways to share the strategies present in this course to other teachers around us. Section 5 – Evaluation: The course will end with a graded evaluation that will help check your understanding of the material.

Learning Objectives Through this course, you will: Identify why we need to plan for a week of instruction Examine the critera of an effective weekly plan Learn to create our own weekly plans Examine ways to share weekly planning strategies with other teachers

How do we currently plan for a week of instruction? To understand how we currently plan for a week of instruction, let us begin with a temperature check activity. On a scale of 1-3, where 1 indicates never, 2 indicates sometimes and 3 indicates always, place yourselves on the statements given below: My week of instruction includes opportunities for students to reflect on their actions and practice My week of instruction includes opportunities for students to build relationships with each other and their teachers 3. My week of instruction includes opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning. 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

How do we currently plan for a week of instruction? The data I collect over a week of instruction helps me correct student mistakes. My students get an opportunity to correct the mistakes and misunderstandings over the week. I can adapt when unforeseen events occur in the week. We will revisit these statements over the duration of the course. 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

Why do we need to plan for the week?

What principle does an effective Weekly Plan follow? An effective weekly plan, like most other effective plans we have learnt to create, follows the Backwards Planning Principle of GAPCA. GAPCA stands for: Let’s examine what GAPCA looks like in the context of Weekly Planning. Goal Having a clear outcome or goal Assessment Having a way to assess the goal and knowing what success is Planning Having a plan to get to the goal Checks for Progress Having timely milestones along the way to check your progress to the goal Adaptive Having the space to adapt and be flexible in response to progress

G is for Goal

G is for Goal While we would like our students to be able to score well in their exams, we must realise that students need to be able to see and understand that the content and skills they are learning can be used in their real life. What they study in the week must be able to add up to something greater for the entire unit or year. This brings us to the first criteria of effective weekly planning. Criteria 1 An effective weekly plan adds up to greater learning for students over a month, unit or term.

A is for Assessment

A is for Assessment Every effective weekly plan includes an assessment. This assessment is a Formative Assessment that assesses all the skills and content that a student has learnt over the duration of the week. A weekly assessment is helpful to both the teacher and the students in the following ways: Therefore, this brings us to criteria 2 of effective weekly planning:To learn more about Formative Assessments, please register for and complete the Firki course on Formative Assessments. For Teachers For Students Inform their instruction based on evidences Make immediate instructional adjustment Correct student mistakes and misunderstanding Raise self-awareness of where they are and where they need to reach Act on the feedback received and build ownership in them Boosts motivation and self-esteem Criteria 2 An effective weekly plan provides opportunities for: Students to demonstrate learning Teacher to inform instruction

P is for Plan

P is for Plan An effective weekly plan brings together all the aspects of an excellent education which are: Academic Achievement Values and Mind-sets Exposure and Access Criteria 3: An effective weekly plan includes objectives that have been created by breaking down a chapter from the textbook. Criteria 4: An effective weekly plan includes opportunities for students to build relationships with each other and their teachers Criteria 5: An effective weekly plan includes opportunities for students to reflect on their actions and practice during the week

C is for Checks for Progress This brings us back to criteria 2:

C is for Checks for Progress By the time a teacher conducts and checks the assessments at the end of the week, it may be too late for the teacher to do anything about poor student outcomes. Being able to check student understanding during lessons or at the end of the day allows the teacher to make changes to his/her weekly plan in a way that doesn’t surprise the teacher or students at the end of the weekly assessment. This brings us back to criteria 2: Criteria 2 An effective weekly plan provides opportunities for: Students to demonstrate learning Teacher to inform instruction

A is for Adaptive

A is for Adaptive This brings us to the final 2 criteria for effective weekly plans: Criteria 6 An effective weekly plan includes opportunities for students to correct their misunderstandings Criteria 7 An effective weekly plan ensures the teacher can adapt to unforeseen circumstances

What is the criteria for an effective weekly plan? An effective weekly plan adds up to greater learning for students over a month, unit or term. Criteria 1 An effective weekly plan provides opportunities for: Students to demonstrate learning Teacher to inform instruction Criteria 2 An effective weekly plan includes objectives that have been created by breaking down a chapter from the textbook. Criteria 3 An effective weekly plan includes opportunities for students to build relationships with each other and their teachers Criteria 4 An effective weekly plan includes opportunities for students to reflect on their actions and practice during the week Criteria 5 An effective weekly plan includes opportunities for students to correct their misunderstandings Criteria 6 An effective weekly plan ensures the teacher can adapt to unforeseen circumstances Criteria 7

How can we create our own weekly plan? We will use the following steps to create our own weekly plan: Let’s examine them in greater detail. Calendar objectives across the week Include opportunities for students to build relationships with each other and their teachers and reflect on their practice and actions over the week Include a weekly assessment Include space for students to correct their misunderstandings and buffer space for unforeseen circumstances

Calendar objectives across the week You can learn to break down a chapter from the textbook into objectives by registering for and completing the Firki course on Lesson Planning. After you have broken down your chapter from your textbook into objectives, you can calendar them into your weekly plan as shown below. Use this weekly planning template to calendar your objectives for the subjects you teach. Our objectives need to be calendared over all the teaching days in the week except the last. Identify the exact time in the day you would like to teach this objective The objectives need to build in complexity and include the content you will teach in the week. This content needs to build up to what the students need to be able to do in the Performance Task.

Include opportunities for students to build relationships and reflect on their actions over the week We can use 4 simple structures over the duration of the week to include opportunities for students to reflect and build relationships with each other. They are: Morning Meetings Closing Circles Sharing Circles Here is how it looks in a weekly plan.

Include opportunities for students to build relationships Morning Meetings help frame the day for our students and could be a part of every morning. A Sharing Circle is a great space for students to build relationships with each other and explore something that may of interest to them. Can be done once a week. Closing Circles allows students an opportunity to reflect on their practice and actions and could be a part of the end of every day. Please include opportunities for students to build relationships and reflect on their actions into your weekly plan as well. You can learn more about Morning Meetings and Closing Circles from the Firki course on ‘Building Reflection in students’. You can learn about Sharing Circles from the Firki course on ‘Sharing Circles’.

Include a weekly assessment You should include a weekly assessment in your weekly plan. It is best placed on the second last day of the week so that you can correct student misunderstandings based on the data you have from the weekly assessments on the last day of the week. Include an assessment for each subject area that tests the content and skills you have taught over the week. This assessment is best placed on the second last day of your week. To learn to create your own weekly assessments, please refer to the Firki course on Formative Assessments. Please include a weekly assessment for every subject you teach on the second last day of the week in your own weekly planning template.

Include space for students to correct their misunderstandings and buffer time for unforeseen circumstances A reteach an remediate block is perfect for a teacher to use the data from the weekly assessment to correct the misunderstandings students may have from the content taught in the week. It can also be used to cover content that was not covered over the week due to unexpected events. The Reteach and Remediate block allows students an opportunity to correct misunderstandings and the teacher a chance to provide targeted support. It should be placed on the last day of the week. Please create a reteach and remediate block in your weekly plan as well. To learn how to use data to inform instruction, please refer to the Firki courses, ‘Data Driven Instruction 1’ and Data Driven Instruction 2’.

How can we share this message with other teachers around us?: Here are a few ways you can share your learnings about weekly planning with other teachers: Co-plan a week with a teacher in your school. Create a weekly plan and ask another teacher to give you feedback on it. Invite other teachers in your school to observe your sharing circles. Organise a data gathering in your school where you can come together with other teachers to discuss the data from weekly assessments and plan for what to do during the reteach and remediation block. These are only suggestions. Feel free to spread the message in any other way you would like to.

Evaluation

Evaluation

Evaluation

Evaluation

Congratulations on completing the course on Weekly Planning. Visit the course catalogue to register for more courses.