on lesson plans

regarding the development of a MTC wiki that is intended to facilitate the development of teacher resources: http://mtcorps.pbwiki.com/

this is a slightly modified e-mail to the people developing the site, and may only make sense in the context of the inner politics of the mississippi teacher corps - but hopefully it has some resonance with the dilemma of the classroom teacher in a resource crisis:


this (or any) lesson plan depot will be an excellent way to document the planning process, but it will be a horrible way to share resources. what is the goal of an mtc wiki: to focus on novel ways to integrate web-based documentation into its own classrooms (which is a noble enough goal), or to focus on novel ways to facilitate resource access to its participants (which, i contend, is a different goal)? if it's the former, which is a valid enough reason to create the thing, then i rest my case - and what jake's put together is excellent for these purposes. if not, here me out:

of course, the intent is that wiki will go live tomorrow morning, and so showing them a well-structured lesson plan depot is the obvious route if we want things to start accumulating data. however - since what we're (you're?) developing is a wiki, i would ask the second years - either before or after a crash course in wiki editing - what a successful pathway of resource distribution looks like? that is - if i wanted to get information and materials together for a lesson on adding/subtracting fraction - what is the most useful format that this would be available in? if i'm a teacher, the most imporant thing getting from point A - which i guess we can assume is my initial thoughts/memories about adding/subtracting fractions, as well as my accumulated awareness of the class of students i'm going to work with - to point B - which is a confident plan of action that fits around my teaching style and my classroom composition. BELIEVE ME, this will not be achieved by a well-organized library of lesson plans, which can be printed out as is - or (to those detractors who would mention that a person could weed through and get the handouts they wanted, and write their own plan, which they can of course post on the wiki) whose primary format preempts a depth of navigation beyond its fundamental cover letter restrictions (it is in my mind impossible to imagine that attaching handouts to a madeline hunter approximation is the best way to present a teacher with the opportunity to make a value judgement on the utility of the materials themselves in respect to their classroom; there is too much time wasted in filtering through and contextualizing so much beuraucratic (sp?) filler). come on guys, even in good to great: "We recognize that planning is priceless, but plans are useless" so: how do we cultivate the critical moments of planning without sacrificing to the pitfalls of plans?

the direction should not be: here's a format that basically adds digital and wiki trappings to a medium you're already used to (this is like having early films being glorified theatrical productions), the direction should be: we have a month to build around us the most useful and flexible resource network we can imagine: if we start with the internet and some wiki software, what does this look like? (this is like: i have a narrative and a camera: how can i make it happen?)

of course: my criticism is more than likely too little too late, as i'm out of the proverbial loop and i won't be presenting to a room full of second years tomorrow. also, even if any of you were sympathetic to my skepticism, it's profoundly true that i do not have a better model for resource collection and distribution - nor do i harbor the pretention, contrary to popular belief, that all i need to do is sit down and meditate on this mess for a bit before i have whatever epiphany i'm whining about. however, i think a brainstorming session about how to be adapt a wiki to the needs of teachers in classrooms may offer up better perpective than a top-down here's-how-you-get-to-do-your-mtc-assignments-online sort of thing. having a binder labeled "algebra I" that's full of even peer-edited lesson plans will be another dusty addition to our classrooms. we have never been instructed on the process of moving from lesson plan to classroom teaching (though if you wanted to build a curriculm around this, go for it - it would be necessary for the application of this wiki); we have been instructed to plan for our classrooms and to accumulate a formated cover sheet for our plans in a given format - the format that jake has done a good job of tranferring to the site. lesson plans in this light are byproducts, not stepping stones. my bottom line: we need to keep the measure of success focused on the usefullness of these texts to future teachers (including future use by the contributors themselves), and we need to let the wiki medium form fluidly around our objectives, not just be a new way to present an old idea. if nothing else, let the second years think about whether or not the proposed system will achieve these goals.

i would greatly appreciate thoughts on this matter. i would be happy to include points of clarification if necessary.