Lesson plan preparation, outmoded or relevant requirement?

NewsGhana24| Writing teaching lesson plans in teacher’s notebooks have become topical today as facilitators, headteachers, and CS are at each other’s throat. To prepare or not to prepare lesson notes is the question.

The GES should come out boldly and let facilitators (teachers)  know whether it is compulsory to write lesson notes or daily lesson plans. It has been proven that there is some controversy about whether to prepare daily lesson plans or not.

Most CS are stressing teachers. Some CS are asking teachers to write their our own daily lesson plans using templates of the lesson plan when the same lesson plans are available online to download.

Read: Lesson plans NOT compulsory for Basic School teachers

Culture is said to be dynamic and changes with the passage of time, bringing onboard new and relevant ways of doing things through acculturation and assimilation of other cultures. In the field of education in Ghana, this can be applied to the bruhaha surrounding the writing of lesson plans by teachers in basic schools. It is ruling the world and making work easy, are we not aware of that in Ghana?

The reality is that times have changed, and technology has evolved thus having a significant impact on not only teaching methods but also the duties of a teacher in delivered and relevant knowledge is transferred to students.

With the advent of technology, online news portals, and technologically inclined teachers and eduprenuers, there is an urgent need for the Ghana Education Service to reconsider the demands it puts on teachers to write daily lesson plans.

The introduction of the New Standard Based Curriculum came with new ways of providing teachers with relevant knowledge and lesson plans for effective teaching. This innovative approach needs to be embraced and adopted by the NaCCa and the Ghana Education Service.

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A standard is a level of quality or attainment expected and since the new curriculum requires a basic standard to be attained by teachers across Ghana, there is the need to ensure that, teachers across the country teach the same content per week.

This, therefore, calls for a common lesson plan for all subjects and levels at the basic school.
This has an added advantage for education and teachers in general and can help the GES evaluate the performance of teachers on a common standard.

The desire of circuit supervisors and headteachers to hold on to the old ways of doing things and demanding for lesson notes needs to be looked at again. Today’s teacher is sophisticated and IT inclined.

For many heads, the cancellation of the writing of teaching notes or lesson plans and schemes of work, could amount to making them less “powerful” and reduce their positional power and authority as heads of their various schools.

However, leadership is not all about positional power but the positive influence of leaders geared toward the achievement of goals.

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It looks as though the Ghana Education Service has remained silent over the issue. The need to set the records straight has become necessary now and NaCCA must also add its voice. Teachers are already accessing schemes and lesson plans online through various websites. Asking them to prepare these same notes will only amount to teachers recopying these materials into lesson notebooks for the various headteachers to vet every Monday morning.

This approach will defy logical reasoning, however, teachers copying such materials will be a waste of precious time and effort especially when the new curriculum does not see copying as a crime in the classroom where learners are to collaborate, learn in teams and support each other in attaining the goals of the lesson seen as strands and sub-strands under the new curriculum.

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Let us ensure, we use this novel lesson plans that have flooded the internet in Ghana to transform the education sector at the pre-tertiary level up to SHS to bring in some level of standardization. These lesson plans available for download online would help the GES as all teachers will be teaching the same thing each day. Setting the expected bi-annual national exams will make it further easy as all schools are more likely to cover the same topics at any point in time.

Embrace the novel online downloadable lesson plans, destress teachers and make their work effective. The old ways of doing things must give way to technology and innovation.

FAQs: What factors should a teacher consider when preparing daily lesson plans in?