During teachers college, many of my professors mentioned
that as teachers we can’t be called upon to “reinvent the wheel.” That many tools were out there in the world
to help us with various aspects of our job.
With Physical Education as my teachable, I was immediately introduced to
the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association (OHPEA) documents by my
first placement teacher to help me with my lesson planning. Although I did consult these documents, I
never fully relied on them.
Fast forward a few months to my next placement. Here I was introduced to TIPS4RM for math
class. At this particular placement, all
teachers in the grade I was working with used TIPS and I was instructed that I
had to use it as well. Although it did
make life easier, as I did not have to stress over what (or how) to teach my
students, it did create a couple problems.
At the school I was placed, one teacher took responsibility for
answering the questions on TIPS as none were provided. On some occasions some mistakes were made,
that I had I caught. I wonder if any were
taught to the students that I did not catch, or how many were taught at other
times in the year.
Although I have used both TIPS and OPHEA documents in my
placement, and do see their benefits in the classroom, I do not feel they
should replace our lesson planning. Both
documents are great resources for teachers to have, providing access to many
activities to use in your classroom. In
my limited experience with these documents, I found that when using them as a
resource only, they helped me to make my lessons better for my students. However, when using them as my entire lesson
plan, they took away the creativity in the planning process, as well as took
away the entire process of lesson planning, which as new teacher is a process
that I could use more practice in.
I am aware that tools such as OPHEA, TIPS and I am sure many
others, are in place to help us as teacher.
What are your experiences with them?
Do you use them? If yes, are they
strictly a resource to help you get an idea when you have a mental block, or
have they replaced your lesson plans entirely?
This is certainly an interesting talking point because the discussion has been around for a long time as to how much autonomy teachers should have over what they teach. Many teachers today can remember when there were little more than general guidelines on what to teach in what grade. Now we're slowly moving in the other direction with these pre-made lessons and unit plans laid out to help us. But I agree with your sentiment more than anything else because while these lessons can help guide us they cannot be the perfect fit for every classroom (no matter how good). Things need to be altered and tailored and there has to be that room for each individual teacher's personal flare. Every teacher brings something unique to the classroom and that needs to be celebrated and recognized too. I feel like your experience with OPHEA and TIPS were similar to mine, but they do serve as great guiding tools.
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