Annual Plans

Before last week I had never heard or even thought of annual plans. I was well aware of pacing guides and following the Standard Course of Study. However, creating an annual plan seems to make complete sense to me. Creating annual plans seems very self explanatory and I am excited to create one with my classmates.


Benefits of annual planning

I see several benefits to annual planning in the classroom. First I think that knowing what you are going to teach before you start the school year will not only benefit the teacher but the students. As a teacher it is great to see the big picture. The more organized the better. If an annual plan was used for each subject being taught, then it would be easier to integrate subjects. Using interdisciplinary teaching students will gain more connections academic disciplines. With all of the plans for the year laid out, it will be much easier to implement this method of teaching. I hope to one day be organized enough to create one for each subject I teach.

Annual planning also helps the teacher to gain better understanding of units and what is to come. When lessons are solely in the form of a pacing guide and objective it may be harder to lead into new topics. Ideally using annual planning you will know what you are teaching next and will be able to make connections and better prepare students for lessons to come. It also creates a more concrete understanding of what you are teaching. Lesson plans and pacing guides do not convey time in a calendar sense. Putting your annual plan into your current school calendar helps the teacher to know when important days are, holidays, early release days, etc. This is important because it is critical that the teacher knows how much instructional time they will have. As it is there never seems to be enough hours in the day to teach everything teachers need to, but knowing ahead of time allows teachers to better prepare.


Disadvantages of annual planning

In my mind I see one of the disadvantages the initial time and effort it takes to create a well written and thought out annual plan. This task may seem very daunting at first, as it does with me now, but after some experience teaching I think it will become easier. Going along with the time and effort annual planning may take, it may also cause over thinking and overwhelming. It is important to remember that the annual plan is not set in stone. It is guidelines or the back bone of what you plan to teach. It is not feasible to always follow it exactly as planned, but it may cause teachers to be overwhelmed and try to stay up-to-date. Thus it is important to be flexible and use annual plans as a the outline for your lessons.


I have not seen annual plans in the schools during my observations, but I have seen a couple of similar ideas. In my second grade classroom my teacher was extremely organized. She had a filing cabinet full of resources that were aligned for every NCSCOS objective. If she had a student that needed reteaching, extensions, differentiation, or ideas she would be able to quickly find something. I love this idea and I think that this would go along with annual planning. One issue I see with annual planning is planning for students whom you do not know, which means you do not know there interests. However, when adding this piece to annual planning I think it would be a great addition. Depending on your class you could have tons of resources at your finger tips. The resource could be placed within your annual plan and it provides tons of lesson possibilities for all different learners.

I also saw the in another one of my field placement classrooms my teacher had a notebook with all of her students planned, rough lesson outlines, how it related to NCSCOS objectives, and student resources. This is similar to an annual plan, however it did not have the broader main topics as an annual plan does. I think that an annual plan would still be more beneficial in helping to see the big picture, but this is still a great start.