Do you do a lot of outside work or...

are you pretty much a go by the teacher's guide person?

What I mean is this:
Do you generally stick to the teacher's guide and let that run your day?

Or do you do a lot more than what the teacher's guide offers, like creating projects and activities and such? Things that take over your evenings and weekends?

I'll add a poll.

Message edited 1/17/2009 11:21:56 PM.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

wait, what's a teacher's guide? You have those things?

All kidding aside, we don't have anything like that. I use different textbooks I've collected and use those problems to make my own materials.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

I teach high school science.
Regents Earth Sci & Biology

I don't know what a teacher's guide is.
I stick to the curriculum exactly, covering the topics that will be on the Regents.

Most days I give them notes, show them some pictures, sometimes we read together and then they do practice questions, or they make a graphic organizer, or some other group activity or individual activity, then we go over it together.
I am not creative AT ALL... I often struggle in coming up with worthwhile activities for them to do that will fill up the whole period, without making each day seem exactly the same.
So planning and grading do take up a lot of time outside of work, even though my lessons are really basic.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

I teach high school biology as well and stick to the core curriculum. I incorporate demos, labs, and video clips into the my lessons as much as possible.

The basic format of the day is more or less the same:
do now....motivation (demo, video clip, current events)...notes...activity or lab. Sometimes in place of notes, I do station activities where students move to various stations and answer questions based on the slides.

As for planning, I wind up spending almost an entire weekend day planning for the week. I do all grading at school.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

We don't have a teacher's guide....

But, we do have a schedule that we MUST follow. We have to teach specific subjects at specific times of the day.

Also, everyone on the grade has to teach the same topic each day- but, we can decide how we teach it

There is MUCH room for creativity at my school. But what's nice is there is still structure.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

I use the teacher's guide as a reference and usually add things that are fun and hands on. It was more work in the beginning, but now that I have been teaching for a while, it's a lot less work.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

i don't even have a teacher's guide for anything! i was given a brief outline of the curriculum when i was hired, told to borrow materials from other teachers, etc. I never use a teacher's guide. I've created my own curriculum in terms of how I want it to flow and when to cover everything. Also, i teach self- contained special ed. so often what the grade level kids are doing my kids can't do. i modify it HEAVILY so at least they are exposed to the same topics, just at a much lower level. I also supplement with a lot of my own projects and things as well as really give them the basics. i have 5th graders that don't know their + and - facts. I also have to work on life skills.

I am lucky to work in a school where although teachers are given a curriculum and we know what needs to be covered and what they need to know for the state tests, we are free to do what we want, when we want and how we want to.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

I teach high school English.

I don't have any kind of teacher's guide. I make up everything myself.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

i only have a teachers guide for math (we use everyday math), but i only use that for the sequence really. i supplement with math steps, and math advantage, and other instruction. i ve found that a lot of the everyday math stuff is not aligned to the NYS standards so i have to make adjustments here and there by skipping some stuff, adding soem stuff, and modifying some stuff.

im totally "on my own" in terms of planning for all other subjects and i LOVE it. i couldnt imagine teaching from a basal reader/textbook all the time.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

I have teachers guides for only math and social studies. Everything else I figure out on my own. I usually flip through the guide and see the structure of the lessons but flow with how I want to do it.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

I have NOTHING, other than that big red Balanced Literacy binder that the city gave out years ago. My school's curriculum is a joke. We have a coach and lead teacher and neither of them have a clue- I could be teaching bomb-making skills for all they know.

If I sound heated, well, it's a sore spot for me. On the one hand I like the freedom, on the other hand I am always second-guessing myself and I hate that.

So, to answer the question, I make everything up.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

I have teachers guides for math and reading and use them however im always changing and adding things to make it better for my class

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

I use my textbooks as placemats for my lunch.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

I have a teachers guide for Everyday Math and fundations. That's it. I do everything else myself like Science, Social Studies, reading, plus all the ABA since I teach an autism class.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

13 years into it and 10 new curriculums I have yet had the opportunity to sit back and reuse reuse reuse

We get a vocab list and an objectives page

Message edited 1/22/2009 6:37:42 AM.

Re: Do you do a lot of outside work or...

We have to cover everything in the NYS curriculum, but have no guide on how to do that. Everything is supplemented with other books and worksheets.

7 years and still plan each week like I have never taught it before