The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 066: The Twin Sins of Planning with Tammy and Christine
Can activity-packed lessons actually hinder true learning? Join Tammy and Christine on the Minimalist Educator Podcast as we unravel the "twin sins of planning," a thought-provoking concept brought to light by McTighe and Willis. We promise you'll walk away with a deeper understanding of how the focus on fun, activity-oriented lessons and an obsession with content coverage can unintentionally overshadow genuine student engagement and understanding. Sharing insights from personal journeys and the brilliant Minimalist Teacher book, we explore strategies to ensure that lessons are not only engaging but also meaningful and centered around the students' needs.
Facing the tug-of-war between curriculum pacing guides and addressing skill gaps is a common challenge for educators. We dive into the heart of this issue, discussing the immense pressure to keep up with timelines while ensuring that no student is left behind. Listen in as we share practical tips like small group instruction and lesson restructuring that prioritize student comprehension over rigid schedules. In our conversation, we stress the importance of building buffer time into planning and encourage educators to streamline their planning documents, focusing on what truly matters: fostering deep understanding and involvement in the learning process.
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Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a podcast about paring down to refocus on the purpose and priorities in our roles with co-hosts and co-authors of the Minimalist Teacher Book, Tammy Musialski-Bornemann and Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2:On this week's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast, we talk about the topic of the twin sins of planning. This is another part in our three-part bend about instructional strategies, so we hope you enjoy finding out about the twin sins of planning. Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator podcast. I'm here with Tammy today. How are you, Tammy?
Speaker 3:I'm pretty good. I'm excited that we're kind of in this three-week run of these specific instructional pieces to teaching, so I'm looking forward to talking about today's topic.
Speaker 2:How are you yeah, good, no same. I think it's good because you know we talk about so many different aspects of education, so it's nice to spend a little bit of time thinking about some instructional strategies and, you know, diving back into the book the Minimalist Teacher some of the things that we talked about in there as well. It's nice to revisit that work that we did previously.
Speaker 3:For sure, for sure. So today we are talking about the twin sins of planning.
Speaker 2:Isn't that great. I love that. Who thought of that as an idea? It's awesome.
Speaker 3:Right, it feels like you're doing something totally wrong, which kind of? But also I don't know. We just have to, like, talk this through. Um, cause planning is tricky for sure. Um, this idea was introduced by McTighe and Willis just pre COVID, it seems like, and we know that Jay McTighe is, you know, known for UBD and backwards planning, and so to know that he has, you know, spent a good portion of his educational career focusing on planning and really digging into effective practices and what works best for instruction, teaching and learning, this is kind of an interesting idea actually.
Speaker 3:And I think probably most of us have been stuck, caught, trapped in it. If that's the right word, yeah, if not both of them, definitely in one. Yeah, for sure, yeah yeah, yeah, so again we're talking. Last week we talked about a double whammy. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again we're talking. Last week we talked about a double whammy, Today we're talking about twin sins.
Speaker 2:So something about the number two that we're working on? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what are the twin sins?
Speaker 2:Okay, so the twin sins of planning. So there are two of these sins that people get caught up when they're planning. The first one is what they call activity-oriented planning, so we're basing our planning just on an activity that might be fun, or oh, the kids would love that, that would be so exciting, or wouldn't that be cute. So we're focused on the activity rather than the deep learning. Guilty, guilty, yeah, who hasn't been? Who hasn't been guilty, absolutely. And then the second sin that they talk about is this preoccupation with coverage. So again, moving away from that deep learning that we want to achieve and getting really, really over-focused on covering everything that we can possibly cover, but doing it in a way that ends up just being this very surface level, just quick touch base, and never really getting to that deep understanding with that transfer and application of what the kids can do.
Speaker 3:So those are the twin sins focusing too much on activity and also on coverage. Yeah, yeah, relatable for sure. I'm sure our listeners are like yeah, I've done that for sure. And I mean, as you're learning to teach and plan, it's going to happen right Like you. Just you have to find your way somehow to become an effective planner and you're not going to know how to do it right away.
Speaker 3:But this made me think of I was looking at a unit plan this morning that a teacher sent me and it was very much the first one, activity oriented, which is great. But but then like, how are you going to teach that? Yeah, how, what's? How are you going to teach that? And I think that one of the the things that I loved so much about when we used to teach together in Singapore, um, and when we would have our team meetings I mean I know that we were on different teams, but the process was the same, right, like we were all looking at this is our unit of study, how are we going to teach these ideas? So there was really like yeah, we know, you know, we got to the activity part after. We were like this is how we're going to teach it, because you need all of those pieces but you can't. It's not teaching if you just have an activity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure. And similarly, if your focus is just on, I have to teach all of this content yeah, is that really teaching? If you're just like I'm expelling information in your is just on, I have to teach all of this content yeah, is that really teaching? If you're just like I'm expelling information in your direction as fast as I possibly can, yeah, is that actually what we want to be doing as well?
Speaker 2:The thing that is coming up for me when I look at these twin sins is that it's really teacher-centred, isn't it? Yeah, it's the teacher really being at the center of the activity, whether it's being focused on activities or coverage, rather than on the students themselves, which I think is quite interesting to think about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, for sure, because you can definitely co-plan some activities with your students, right?
Speaker 3:they can tell you what they want to do but, I, I think one of the things that um teachers get excited right yes, we do, we really do yeah yeah, we do, and then we're like we get carried away and so we get planning something like, oh, this would be so fun, but then we disregard, like we just forget about how much time and energy we're putting into planning activity that may not serve its purpose the way we want it to, and so that time figuring out these really elaborate activities can be just a waste, sadly, because they are the fun things Like we want to plan those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's often not the best use of time to. Yeah, unless it's like a long-term thing, then that might be different, like a long-term project or you know some kind of interactive thing. That's different. But I've seen a lot of times where teachers will, you know, put a lot of time and energy even searching for something. That's the right thing, when really, if you just sat back and thought, let's go back to our episode of one teaching point what am I teaching and how can I teach it Like two simple questions, you would probably figure it out really quick in a quick and easy activity.
Speaker 2:That wouldn't make you go crazy for sure and that's so much of the work that we talk about with teachers is is yeah, how do we get to to the priority of what we're doing, which is, you know, in this case of instructional strategies, it's student understanding. How can we, how can we get there with bang for your buck, rather than getting over focused on the fun activity or what would be really cool at the end? For sure, and thinking about that is this idea of return on investment. You know it's often a business term, but I think it's really applicable here is, if you think about the return on investment, if you're thinking about how much time am I putting into planning this or preparing this activity versus how much is it going to impact student learning, I think that's going to help you make a good decision about whether it's really worthwhile or not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely out whether it's really worthwhile or not. Yeah, definitely. Um, and I'm kind of thinking here too, like I don't want to sound like a stickler, right, like, don't plan any fun activities because it's going to take you too long. But we just have to be careful, right, because teachers love these things, many teachers do, and they want to be creative and so like we don't want to necessarily stifle a teacher's creativity and say, like, don't plan that because that's not going to be worth it.
Speaker 3:But you kind of have to be real and ask yourself is it going to be worth it, like you've been saying, what's the impact on student learning? Is this going to be? Give me the return on investment? And if it's not, even if you're like no, the answer is no, don't do it Right. Like if you have to think about the answer, then the answer is no. And so just reevaluate or rethink how you could maybe break down that activity or prolong it. Or, like, think about the skills, something so that you don't have to stifle your creativity if that's something you want to do, but just like, use it better.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, definitely use it better. Or I was going to say, you know, maybe sprinkle it out a little bit across the year and, just you know, have a few points where you're like I'm just going for fun right now, I'm just going for the pure enjoyment of this experience. I think there's space for that too, and I think you know, when we're talking the the second scene of the preoccupation with coverage, I think that's that's super understandable as well you can definitely see why people get sucked into that.
Speaker 2:Because we're told we have this curriculum, you have these standards or objectives that you need to cover and it feels you know. Especially if, if you've got you know, evaluation cycles or standardized testing, all of these different factors coming in, it feels like that is just hugely important to say yes, I have proof, I taught this. But if we're doing that at the expense of them actually retaining what they're learning and being able to apply it, then we've kind of lost the point of everything that we're trying to do.
Speaker 3:But again, it's super understandable why people fall into that yeah, absolutely makes me think of when I would spend some of my summer times planning curriculum planning with some teachers in New York and I found it always easier to be better about the planning with ELA because we're like, well, this is how we're going to teach this reading and this is how we'll teach this writing. But then when it came to the content, it was math was actually fine because you know we had a teacher guide and you know all of that support. But for science and social studies we had textbooks which are fine to have some content. But then I found once and this could have been like a tired thing or like I don't know but the further we got into that planning, I relied more on like, oh, we're going to read this page and do these questions again, but how am I teaching it? Like I'm not teaching anything. Then we're just reading it together, maybe talking about something, and then they're answering these questions or doing this little experiment or something.
Speaker 3:But that just like really sticks in my mind as one of those could have been a tired thing.
Speaker 3:I'm tired of planning. I don't know my students yet because you know I'm just using the textbook as my guide, right, and you know and not saying you can't do these kinds of things during your summer months or ahead of time, but I think you have to leave out like you can map your unit topics definitely in your content, but you've got to wait to plan in some of the hows Like you might build in some like, let's say, the start of the unit. We're always going to do a chalk talk so I can get to know what people know or use a zoom in or something like that, some kind of like simple protocol that gets them engaged and hooked in. And then, like I am going to have to wait to get to know my kids, to know what kind of activities I'm going to have to plan for them or how I'm going to teach them and you know like that isn't going to be for everything all the time, but you know I got to leave some room for knowing them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely for sure. But yeah, it brings me back to what I was saying earlier about the you know, the teacher centeredness of these two practices, because if you are super focused on I'm going to do this activity, this will be really fun, this will be really cute, or I've got this end product in mind, or if you're just I'm getting through the whole breadth of this curriculum, you're ignoring where the kids are themselves, what they're interested in, what they know, what their prior knowledge is, and so if you go headlong into these twin sins, you're ignoring the kids that are in front of you with this other goal in mind, which is it's really yeah, it's not really where we want to go. We're in the business of education, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Right, and so you know a lot of. If you have programs that you're using which can be helpful. They give you a pacing guide, right, but again they don't know who your kids are. So, yes, we're looking at that coverage piece and you know a lot of programs give some differentiation for you know how to challenge learners or how to remediate and whatever, which are all helpful, but again, like, they don't know your kids either and so they might offer some okay ideas to start with or think about, but it's when we get so caught in the content we just forget about. Like last week we talked about that double whammy where we're looking at pairing the content with skills. Like where's the skill development in here? Yeah, right, like it might be there in your teacher guide, but is that one of those things that gets dropped off Because there's so much in a teacher guide, like it's the teacher materials that we get for programs.
Speaker 2:It's overwhelming and what do you? What do you do then if, say, you're supposed to be doing a unit on I don't know fractions, for example?
Speaker 3:okay.
Speaker 2:I went a different direction yeah yeah, well, let's say fractions, for example, and you've got this pacing guide, you've got a teacher guide and it's telling you, like here are your lessons, here are the objectives that you're going for, but you, you realize that your students have a gap in this area. Yeah, what do you do then? Do you ignore the gap and just carry on because you've got a pacing guide, or do you then add in more things to cover, because you've got to now go back and teach the foundational skills before what you need to do as well as what you need to do? That's like. That feels like you're going to get trapped in a corner there when you've already got so much to cover.
Speaker 3:That's really tricky it is, and I've had that question a few times lately from teachers.
Speaker 3:They're like oh really we're teaching this unit, yeah, we're teaching this unit, but we're noticing these gaps, but we feel like we have to keep going and like, don't keep going, because you're just gonna get further behind and have to reteach even more, right? So, yeah, it's just, it's so tricky and it's it's generally been with, like the k1 and 2 classes, not so much with the upper elementary, which is good because those were. Are they still the covid kids, like the main ones?
Speaker 3:maybe the fifth graders are yeah, they're the ones that miss the the main ones maybe the fifth graders are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're the ones that miss the the. You know that real beginning early education stuff, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah and so like. But we still see lots of ramification in the younger kids with social skills and things Right. But but yeah, the I've heard that quite a bit where teachers are like my kids aren't getting this foundational piece. But I feel like I have to keep going and I'm like you are not alone. Do you know how many teachers are saying this?
Speaker 3:and feel like they just have to keep going because of this pacing guide, which is a great tool to have, but it does not dictate how you should be teaching your students and when to teach the content, because if they're not ready for something, why are you moving on? Yeah, right, and then again like, if most of your kids are getting it and just your handful, then just do a small group, right?
Speaker 3:Like you can teach on and just figure out, restructure your lessons or whatever. So you're doing some station teaching or you know some other kind of variation of an effective instructional model. But yeah, the pacing guides that are offered by programs, they often don't have buffer time in there either, which we've talked about. I think we talked about buffers in season one or two and just that importance of feeling like you have that wiggle room to be able to, like catch up almost or fill in the gaps and and get some foundational skills in there.
Speaker 2:but it's, yeah, it's sometimes that document causes a lot of stress yeah, yeah, I can imagine, but maybe we can rest assured here with McTighe and Willis that you know they're calling it the twin sins of planning, that you know we can feel reassured that we're doing the right thing if we stop and we pause and we make sure that we're not just overly focused on coverage of everything else yeah, yeah, for sure, again we.
Speaker 3:You know we talk a lot about intentionality with things and again, this is being very intentional and how you're doing your planning, absolutely yeah so do we have pare down pointers for the twin sins?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, why is this?
Speaker 3:always so tough, I don't know. But we do it to our guests every episode, I know. But I feel like we give them a heads up kind of, but people are usually good with picking up something. Okay, let's see, I kind of almost feel like it's similar to my paradigm pointer for last week, which is like look at your planning documents and evaluate them or audit them, almost and have a look at what's in your plans.
Speaker 3:Do you have? Is it all activity-based? Are you just looking at coverage? Do you have both of those things? Do you have your how all activity based? Are you just looking at coverage? Do you have both of those things? Do you have your how to's, what's in there, and is there a way to to better I don't want to say plan, but better document almost how you're putting in your content with your how you're teaching? Is there like a shift in how you can use your planning template or your planning book to make sure that you aren't just putting the the content and the activity?
Speaker 2:right, absolutely I'm gonna. I'm to be a little bit cheeky here with my pare down pointer.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Go for it. So I think my pointer for this episode is to be kind to yourself if and when you do fall into these traps, because we've all been there. We've all been there to these traps. Because we've all been there. We've all been there and we've talked about how, why it's so easy for us to be there, like getting excited, to be creative and do something really fun or, for external reasons, getting super concerned about whether you're covering all of your curriculum or not. But I think when you, when you realize that you're falling into this, be cut to yourself. We're all human. We all get caught up. Sometimes it's not the end of the world. We can always restart and try again. But yeah, just, we're often so critical of ourselves in the work that we do because we want to do such a good job. But just take it a little bit easy with yourself.
Speaker 3:I do really like that human-centered pare down pointer okay good to, to my uh do an audit of yourself, which both important things. But maybe you have to be kind to yourself first and just understand that, yeah, we can't. We can't do all the things the right way all the time. Yeah, we're in a constant state of revision. That's what teaching is.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Definitely. That's a good analogy for it, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a lot. Well, this was a fun one to talk about, for sure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Definitely, from many different angles too yeah, thanks for sharing your thoughts today christine. Thank you and we'll see you all next time. Today's episode was brought to you by plan z professional learning services, forward thinking, educator support. Find out more at planzplservicescom.
Speaker 1:Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for more episodes of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. They would love to hear about your journey with minimalism. Connect with them at planzpls on Twitter or Instagram. The music for the podcast has been written and performed by Gaia Moretti.
