Lesson Check-out Space

We invite all new lead and assistant teachers to attend two to four Curriculum Brunches weekly, offered through your Apprenticeship team.  Brunches feed you on many levels!  Brunches provide ample opportunity to establish Peer Coaching  relationships with peers, set up peer observations, and schedule your first presentation.

Post Brunch Online discussions give apprentices shared discussion time to describe in advance what they intend to teach and how they plan to convey their message to the children. We recommend that you (lead teacher and assistant teacher) keep a notebook . The notebook is useful before, during, and after instruction for catching your inspired ideas, questions, and iconcerns.

1. Before: As you consider the content and techniques of the upcoming month's lesson, keep your notebook available to capture related ideas, procedural steps, questions to be answered, and clippings from material you've discovered.
2. During: When you have your notebook available as the lesson is unfolding, you can note what is working and what needs further consideration. As partners, you can take turns jotting.
3. After: While you're enjoying Fellowship after our presentations, it's good to let your mind gently review how the lesson unfolded compared with how you expected it to unfold. Then when you both return to the balcony to fold up the chairs, images and ideas about what you might do differently next time will be ready for revision. Identify the next step -what is the content that should follow for next month? Make note of needed procedural or conceptual changes for the next month's lesson. This is the best time to sketch out -brainstorm- the content and message for next month. (Since the children's responses and mechanics are fresh in your mind, this brainstorming will go much faster than if you wait and come back to it later in two weeks.)