I manage about 17 teachers. Some are pricks/bitches and some share what they create trying to help the school. In the end it really depends on the school management whether they will force a teacher to share. In my case teachers should be sharing but the higher management won’t enforce it if they don’t, so what’s the point?
I mean we have whole websites where they put them up. A lot of times lesson plans are made for a very specific school or classroom. Even then most aren’t made in a way to be presented and shared. Most are probably just written on the back of recycled notices and a worksheet and material throne together in google docs. Putting that all together and presentable to share is a lot of extra work.
In my 15 years of teaching, I think some people:
Don’t want to share because their idea might get stolen
Don’t want to share for fear of ridicule
Don’t have something that may be easily picked up and understood by other teachers
Don’t have the time nor want to help other teachers
For me, I run my school and have many rivals in the area. I holding my cards close to my chest to stay ahead of the competition.
I’d love to share my lessons and experience but I’d be trading my meal-ticket for the good feeling of helping others.
What I will share is “fill your toolbox”. Check YouTube, free esl sites and search through everything and pick out the good stuff.
All the people that are actual teachers that I have worked with understand it’s a necessity inside of a department to share plans, tests, assessment data, and to do observations/give feedback. That’s what happens in any department in any school, people who are not a part of that process probably aren’t actually teaching staff to the institution itself, or are not working in a school.
An exception could be an English department that has worked together with few staff/curriculum changes for a long stretch, in which case it would more just be making tweaks to things yourself and not having anything new to share.
You learn about this entire process and how important it is during teacher training/student teaching and the licensure process for people who go the BA/license route. For the MA route it’s usually a part of coursework and a practicum of some sort, you’ll always have to pass observations and share lesson plans while collaborating with other staff at some point.
Anyone that’s intentionally secretive about their lesson plans would be a red flag to me, they’re showing that they’re an amateur, they don’t have confidence in what they’re doing, or that they don’t have lessons plans or haven’t/can’t put them together for what they’re teaching.
I remember one guy sent out a lesson and said if you used it, you had to tell everyone he made it lol. Crappy lesson too
Might the reason in many cases be that people don’t *have* lesson plans?
I never used lesson plans because I taught by modular units.
If my co workers ask me what are my lesson plans, I tell them. It doesn’t bother me if they steal it because I don’t teach the same grade as them. Every month I write a lesson plan for the entire month, but during the week I have to change my lesson around because I’m told we have a fire/earthquake drill or we have a visitor. I neglect to tell my assistant teacher that I moved the schedule around.
They dont have the time to sit and go through it all is my guess
I once tried to get some sharing going between another guy in a similar position. He seemed real keen. So I emailed him some of my work. And then I never got anything back. So, I just gave up after that.
A bit unrelated, but I also began to put a copyright symbol and my name at the bottom of my worksheets. I had a couple of Japanese teachers pawning my work as their own in other classes. I mean I don’t mind others using what I create. But just give me credit. Don’t act as if you made it.
They have enough scrutiny without listening to an assistant language teacher correct all their English.
I think a lot of it is just they feel it’s not good enough to share or specific to the environment and class flow.
I don’t mind sharing my lesson materials but it can seem like a jumble of activities. I just connect them in class as I know how. I’m not going to sit there and write out instructions for someone else that’s time consuming.
Same as when I was an ALT. I made materials very specific to the class. They might not seem planned to most but they make sense within the context.
At my company we provide lesson plans and then I try to provide as many tips and game ideas as possible. Same with other teachers. I know what it’s like to be new. We have a ton of teachers so the more we can help the better at least it’s what I think.
It depends and I’ve only done it once.
I usually enjoy collaborating and take it as a compliment when my ideas are stolen or used. That being said, when that happens, my coworkers are super respectful and very appreciative when in times of trouble, my ideas have bailed them out. Basically, they steal but they give props where props are due. It’s also nice of them when they spread word that I am a great teacher and they love taking ideas from me.
Some people straight up steal without giving credit or worse, take the credit for themselves. They take your lesson plan and ideas and pass it off as their own original. The one time this happened to me, this teacher even asked to borrow my preparations for her class. Therefore, zero effort in coming up with a plan and zero effort in preparing for the day as well.
You can also tell if said person is just in a bind and needs help or if a person is just being lazy. Usually you can tell who a person is over time
Lesson plans or activities? I can’t really see how lesson plans would be super helpful for people outside your institution. They are usually pretty specific.
Activities, it depends. It can take a lot of time to produce them, and there is definitely a difference between things I make just for me vs for other people. It can require quite a bit of work to prepare stuff for other people to use, so I have to ask “what’s in it for me to do all this extra work” a lot of the time.
I don’t have any problem with sharing stuff in terms of “it’s a threat to me to share my ideas”. In any industry I have worked in, people who are good at their jobs are usually very generous with sharing their knowledge, because they know they are competent and hirable.
There is still that one website floating around that has multiple lesson plans from multiple teachers stretching back years for each of the text books the Public School system uses, right? I forget it off the top of my head, but I distinctly remember using it.
In another Asian country : I was happy to share but always got screwed over.
One guy stole my USB with years of work in it.
Another new Co-worker who was new to university teaching and who slept with students as she was about 5 years older than them used my work got promoted to MY head. She was a local. I had 10 years more exp than her.
Another one used my lesson plans and activities exactly as I made them and was given benefits I could only dream of.
I’m excellent at my job but my nationality and especially my race causes me to be overlooked.
At my previous uni I found a group of about 5 of us who were kind of outsiders to the bullshit and we collaborated well.
I won’t share my stuff with anyone anymore unless we’re “similar “ in our work ethic.
I don’t write lesson plans anymore, but I do create materials. An inexperienced teacher would not know how to use those materials, however, since there aren’t explicit instructions and the method that the materials employ might not be apparent to someone without that knowledge of methodology.
I don’t know why beginner teachers are stingy with lesson plans. You’d think they would be more eager to collaborate and work together.
Those begging to share lesson materials usually produce utter crapolla so want to steal other people’s material and pass it off as their own.
Ask ChatGPT to make you lesson plans.
Our plans were completely done for us. So of course we shared but we also shared how he handled the class to the incoming teacher (eikaiwa). For ALT, I had a book and based my lesson plans off what I learned in Eikaiwa. As a Gymboree teacher, everything was planned out for us by Gymboree.
I’ve been teaching uni for 8 years now and have never written up a formal lesson plan. I could explain what and why I do what I do, but don’t have anything written down.
Activities, yes. Lesson plans, no.
The problem with LPs is that they are very teacher/school specific and often won’t translate across teachers very well. I’m constantly changing and finessing my LPs every year because no class or school is ever the same.
Everybody has a different teaching style and method, so its not always compatible. Activities are generally catch-all components of a lesson that can easily be adapted for any circumstance.
I am normally pretty lax about sharing lesson plans (and within a section, I think it would be insane not to expect to share one’s materials), but I did once see a case of an ALT dispatch company taking lessons found at one of their contracted schools, editing out the crediting information for the people who made it and replacing it with their own branding information, which is dodgy AF.
That depends on two factors: the teaching environment and the staff I’m working with. If it’s an environment where everyone is a trained and licensed professional I would have no problem sharing my plans to see if they were logical, organized, followed the curriculum and achieved their stated goals.
If we’re talking about an environment where the majority of educators are untrained and not licensed, then no, it’s not my job to train the to do the job they should have known how to do before deciding to do it because they were offered it ona country where standards for foreign teaching staff are lacking.
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I manage about 17 teachers. Some are pricks/bitches and some share what they create trying to help the school. In the end it really depends on the school management whether they will force a teacher to share. In my case teachers should be sharing but the higher management won’t enforce it if they don’t, so what’s the point?
I mean we have whole websites where they put them up. A lot of times lesson plans are made for a very specific school or classroom. Even then most aren’t made in a way to be presented and shared. Most are probably just written on the back of recycled notices and a worksheet and material throne together in google docs. Putting that all together and presentable to share is a lot of extra work.
In my 15 years of teaching, I think some people:
Don’t want to share because their idea might get stolen
Don’t want to share for fear of ridicule
Don’t have something that may be easily picked up and understood by other teachers
Don’t have the time nor want to help other teachers
For me, I run my school and have many rivals in the area. I holding my cards close to my chest to stay ahead of the competition.
I’d love to share my lessons and experience but I’d be trading my meal-ticket for the good feeling of helping others.
What I will share is “fill your toolbox”. Check YouTube, free esl sites and search through everything and pick out the good stuff.
All the people that are actual teachers that I have worked with understand it’s a necessity inside of a department to share plans, tests, assessment data, and to do observations/give feedback. That’s what happens in any department in any school, people who are not a part of that process probably aren’t actually teaching staff to the institution itself, or are not working in a school.
An exception could be an English department that has worked together with few staff/curriculum changes for a long stretch, in which case it would more just be making tweaks to things yourself and not having anything new to share.
You learn about this entire process and how important it is during teacher training/student teaching and the licensure process for people who go the BA/license route. For the MA route it’s usually a part of coursework and a practicum of some sort, you’ll always have to pass observations and share lesson plans while collaborating with other staff at some point.
Anyone that’s intentionally secretive about their lesson plans would be a red flag to me, they’re showing that they’re an amateur, they don’t have confidence in what they’re doing, or that they don’t have lessons plans or haven’t/can’t put them together for what they’re teaching.
I remember one guy sent out a lesson and said if you used it, you had to tell everyone he made it lol. Crappy lesson too
Might the reason in many cases be that people don’t *have* lesson plans?
I never used lesson plans because I taught by modular units.
If my co workers ask me what are my lesson plans, I tell them. It doesn’t bother me if they steal it because I don’t teach the same grade as them. Every month I write a lesson plan for the entire month, but during the week I have to change my lesson around because I’m told we have a fire/earthquake drill or we have a visitor. I neglect to tell my assistant teacher that I moved the schedule around.
They dont have the time to sit and go through it all is my guess
I once tried to get some sharing going between another guy in a similar position. He seemed real keen. So I emailed him some of my work. And then I never got anything back. So, I just gave up after that.
A bit unrelated, but I also began to put a copyright symbol and my name at the bottom of my worksheets. I had a couple of Japanese teachers pawning my work as their own in other classes. I mean I don’t mind others using what I create. But just give me credit. Don’t act as if you made it.
They have enough scrutiny without listening to an assistant language teacher correct all their English.
I think a lot of it is just they feel it’s not good enough to share or specific to the environment and class flow.
I don’t mind sharing my lesson materials but it can seem like a jumble of activities. I just connect them in class as I know how. I’m not going to sit there and write out instructions for someone else that’s time consuming.
Same as when I was an ALT. I made materials very specific to the class. They might not seem planned to most but they make sense within the context.
At my company we provide lesson plans and then I try to provide as many tips and game ideas as possible. Same with other teachers. I know what it’s like to be new. We have a ton of teachers so the more we can help the better at least it’s what I think.
It depends and I’ve only done it once.
I usually enjoy collaborating and take it as a compliment when my ideas are stolen or used. That being said, when that happens, my coworkers are super respectful and very appreciative when in times of trouble, my ideas have bailed them out. Basically, they steal but they give props where props are due. It’s also nice of them when they spread word that I am a great teacher and they love taking ideas from me.
Some people straight up steal without giving credit or worse, take the credit for themselves. They take your lesson plan and ideas and pass it off as their own original. The one time this happened to me, this teacher even asked to borrow my preparations for her class. Therefore, zero effort in coming up with a plan and zero effort in preparing for the day as well.
You can also tell if said person is just in a bind and needs help or if a person is just being lazy. Usually you can tell who a person is over time
Lesson plans or activities? I can’t really see how lesson plans would be super helpful for people outside your institution. They are usually pretty specific.
Activities, it depends. It can take a lot of time to produce them, and there is definitely a difference between things I make just for me vs for other people. It can require quite a bit of work to prepare stuff for other people to use, so I have to ask “what’s in it for me to do all this extra work” a lot of the time.
I don’t have any problem with sharing stuff in terms of “it’s a threat to me to share my ideas”. In any industry I have worked in, people who are good at their jobs are usually very generous with sharing their knowledge, because they know they are competent and hirable.
There is still that one website floating around that has multiple lesson plans from multiple teachers stretching back years for each of the text books the Public School system uses, right? I forget it off the top of my head, but I distinctly remember using it.
In another Asian country : I was happy to share but always got screwed over.
One guy stole my USB with years of work in it.
Another new Co-worker who was new to university teaching and who slept with students as she was about 5 years older than them used my work got promoted to MY head. She was a local. I had 10 years more exp than her.
Another one used my lesson plans and activities exactly as I made them and was given benefits I could only dream of.
I’m excellent at my job but my nationality and especially my race causes me to be overlooked.
At my previous uni I found a group of about 5 of us who were kind of outsiders to the bullshit and we collaborated well.
I won’t share my stuff with anyone anymore unless we’re “similar “ in our work ethic.
I don’t write lesson plans anymore, but I do create materials. An inexperienced teacher would not know how to use those materials, however, since there aren’t explicit instructions and the method that the materials employ might not be apparent to someone without that knowledge of methodology.
I don’t know why beginner teachers are stingy with lesson plans. You’d think they would be more eager to collaborate and work together.
Those begging to share lesson materials usually produce utter crapolla so want to steal other people’s material and pass it off as their own.
Ask ChatGPT to make you lesson plans.
Our plans were completely done for us. So of course we shared but we also shared how he handled the class to the incoming teacher (eikaiwa). For ALT, I had a book and based my lesson plans off what I learned in Eikaiwa. As a Gymboree teacher, everything was planned out for us by Gymboree.
I’ve been teaching uni for 8 years now and have never written up a formal lesson plan. I could explain what and why I do what I do, but don’t have anything written down.
Activities, yes. Lesson plans, no.
The problem with LPs is that they are very teacher/school specific and often won’t translate across teachers very well. I’m constantly changing and finessing my LPs every year because no class or school is ever the same.
Everybody has a different teaching style and method, so its not always compatible. Activities are generally catch-all components of a lesson that can easily be adapted for any circumstance.
I am normally pretty lax about sharing lesson plans (and within a section, I think it would be insane not to expect to share one’s materials), but I did once see a case of an ALT dispatch company taking lessons found at one of their contracted schools, editing out the crediting information for the people who made it and replacing it with their own branding information, which is dodgy AF.
That depends on two factors: the teaching environment and the staff I’m working with. If it’s an environment where everyone is a trained and licensed professional I would have no problem sharing my plans to see if they were logical, organized, followed the curriculum and achieved their stated goals.
If we’re talking about an environment where the majority of educators are untrained and not licensed, then no, it’s not my job to train the to do the job they should have known how to do before deciding to do it because they were offered it ona country where standards for foreign teaching staff are lacking.