10 Amazing Lesson Planning Apps and Tools for Teachers
Creating and writing lesson plans are activities common to basic teacher education courses. Before entering a classroom, young educators are taught how to meticulously plan their time for the benefit of their students.
The most obvious way that teachers avoid the traditional lesson planning concept is by finding ideas, or even entire plans, online. This shortcut can be as simple as finding an in-class activity idea on Pinterest or as complex as downloading a grading period’s worth of grade-appropriate lessons. Critics of this type of planning cite ethical issues, saying that a teachers’ lesson plans should always be original. Creating these plans is simply part of the job and should never be outsourced.
Even if teachers spend just a few hours per week on lesson plans, that is a few hours that educators could feasibly be doing something else. The internet has made so many other professions more efficient – shouldn’t teaching benefit too? We agree. To help teachers be more productive and spend less time developing plans, we decided to do the heavy lifting for them. We created a list of 10 the best lesson planning tools and apps for teachers.
This was originally a list of 10, but 2 had to be retired, as they are no longer available.
1. BetterLesson
Peerless Common Core-aligned lessons for educators who are serious about their craft.
Amazing lesson planning that is aligned with Common Core and promotes collaboration.
Free lesson planning resources for teachers of the language arts and reading.
4. ReadWorks
A teacher’s resource for reading-comprehension resources.
5. LearnZillion
Well-designed Common Core-aligned lessons.
Research-based site makes it easy to differentiate instruction and readings.
Educators can make multimedia lessons with engaging but not-so-interactive style.
8. Teachers.io
A wonderful management tool that helps teachers plan communicate with students.
Did we miss anything? If so, tell us in the comments below.
There is one more lesson planning tool in the CLARITY platform, http://www.itutorsoft.com/. Except manual planning, available in that platform, Instructional Engine can execute the lesson plan you developed and automatically generate a personalized tutoring of your students. So, you may devote more time to a few students who are behind or ahead of others.
Thanks for these links! A few I recognize, but most I don’t; I look forward to checking them out. And, as a high school ELA teacher, here are a few other free resources I use:
edutopia.com for Common Core aligned strategies and methods (primarily for high school)
teachingchannel.org for videos that show teachers instructing a segment of a lesson with explanations for their approaches. This resource is also Common Core aligned and covers all grade levels and subjects.
It was so good to read so many optimistic believes about the future of education. I was really caught up in all of it but then I remember what about the students who are in school now? I’ve seen way to many high school students who can’t tell time or read past a 2nd grade level. Or the students being told you must learn another language if you want to graduate. The use of technology is still spoken of as the prize which will solve everything that needs to be fixed. I agree it can help but there are several issues that need to be met first. Students know how to text, misspell words to send messages but not how to send a letter. They can find their games and music but from what I have seen of their use of their iPhones or other devices they do not know how to use the technology as a tool to help them learn. They have no overall interest in learning how to use it as a tool.
Now another issue is that many schools do not have enough devices for students to use and the computers they have often won’t work when a teacher has prepared a lesson on them. Or maybe just a couple of the computers won’t work and you can bet it is the computers of the students who can’t find a book and work independently. It will happen to the students who require the most support.
These above mentioned issues are not going to disappear. I remember hearing if you want your students to learn something – teach it. This includes how to use the technology that surrounds them. Teach them how to take their phones and use them as a tool to learn. When schools and communities take on this issue then I can see the bright futures discussed having a good solid background for it to occur.