Planning for a leave replacement

There is a definite balance that needs to be made while planning for a leave replacement. My default state is to over plan. I like to know what my end outcome is going to be and then work from there. In order to do that, I need to decide how long an assessment will take (usually a paper or project) and then what I want my students to show in the assessment. From there, I map out the number of weeks I think is acceptable for preparing them to complete the assessment. I typically take a calendar and literally fill in what I want to accomplish when.

Now, that is my ideal. And in an ideal world, I would know exactly how long it will take students to understand concepts and they will be able to follow my plan exactly. However, that almost never works out. I still have my plan, but I am always adapting it. Basically, I have learned it is best to either keep the plan as a Word document or to write it in pencil. Anything more permanent would be foolish.

For this position, I have had two distinct differences from previous ones. For starters, I have to prepare for three separate classes. As this school is extremely small, I am the sole middle school language arts teacher. I teach six, seventh, and eight grade. There are two seventh grade classes since that class is larger than the others. I have each class every day for 50 minutes. In the past, I had one or two classes to prepare for. Also, this is my first time with classes that short. Most schools are adopting block scheduling, which makes for 80 or 90 minute classes every other day. Those require much different plans.

The other difference is that I have had almost two full weeks of observing. I have filled in for the teacher now and then when she had doctor’s appointments (almost daily) but other than that I’ve just been sitting here. So I have had a lot of time to plan. Right now, I have almost complete plans for two of the classes. The other class I have a looser sense of what I’m doing, but I still have an idea. I haven’t compiled materials for every lesson, but I’m a good week or so ahead. I feel very prepared.

Unfortunately, one cannot really prepare. I have no idea how well things are going to go or if I properly timed activities. I even wrote out a unit plan with due dates for the eighth graders. They might need to do some adjusting if I end up being horribly wrong. Sometimes I think that it would be better if I were the type of person who was comfortable with just “winging it” but I’m not. I am anxious if I don’t have a plan. I don’t mind having to change in throughout, but I really need some sort of plan to begin with.