Note: Before taking any of the steps outlined below, be sure that the school year in your account is the current school year. If your account is still pointing to last school year, one of your school’s account administrators should watch this video.
Curriculum Trak offers a lesson plan database for any teacher to reuse/revise from year to year rather than creating lesson plans from scratch. As a result, we recommend the following steps should be taken each year by teachers after the annual rollover. These steps will help teachers maintain their database and increase their lesson planning efficiency from year to year.
1) Redefine/Review Class Sections - this is an annual task due to both teaching assignment changes and other technical changes within Curriculum Trak.
a) FACTS SIS Schools must select the current class sections.
b) Class sections need to reflect current teaching assignments and daily schedule. If you are using the Flex scheduling option, you will likely need to update your weekly schedule.
Notes about class sections:
Extra Class Sections: There is little need to keep inactive/unneeded class sections. Class sections allow you to view existing lesson plans and create new lesson plans. Lesson plans are saved by course. You can add/delete your class sections as needed without deleting your lesson plans. It is recommended that you delete ALL unnecessary class sections from your account. However, if all class sections for a single course have been deleted, you will no longer be able to view or manage the lesson plans for that course. The lessons in that area are effectively hidden.
Setting Class Sections as “Inactive.” If you have a class section you are not currently teaching, but you have not yet determined what you would like to do with the lessons in that area, you may set the class section as inactive. This will hide the class section from your weekly planner (and possibly hide the lessons for that course in your lessons database, but allow you to reactivate it at any time to begin working with those lessons again.
Changed Teaching Assignments: If you have been assigned a different course for which your existing (previous) lesson plans still apply, you will want to reassign the lesson to the new course before deleting or deactivating an unneeded class section.
2) Rollover/Reschedule Lesson Plans - There are three ways to reuse existing lessons from your database. Creating new lessons is still an option, but may not always be necessary.
a) Class Section Rollover - This option is ideal for course instruction that will follow closely the previous year’s scope and sequence. Individual teachers are able to reschedule all of the lessons he/she scheduled during the previous school year and enter the date for the first lesson, and the rest of the dates will automatically populate. The teacher will have some ability to make changes before finalizing the schedule. Adjustments can be made from week to week in the Weekly Planner. Once even one lesson is scheduled for the course in another way, this rollover option will no longer be available unless a new class section is created. Note: Teachers are only able to rollover their own lessons. Those created by other teachers will not be available for use by a newly assigned teacher. If a current teacher is using a lesson plan created by a previous teacher of the course, the lesson will need to be copied into the current teacher’s database and scheduled manually the first year before it can be automatically rolled over in future years.
b) Lesson by Lesson scheduling (from the database or weekly planner) - Any lesson can be scheduled at any time throughout the year. This option is always available even if one of the above options have been used.
c) Unit-by-Unit Lesson Scheduling - Lessons can be scheduled one unit at a time. This option allows a teacher to think in terms of individual units as they desire. This option is always available throughout the year.
3) Copy/Move Lessons - Before creating lessons from scratch, consider how one of the following options may increase your lesson planning efficiency:
a) Copy Existing Lessons - Any lesson you have created, or lessons created by another teacher (past or present) for any course you currently teach, can be copied into your database, assigned to any course and unit, and scheduled into your Weekly Planner.
b) Move Existing Lessons to different Units/Courses - If your instructional plan has changed and you need to reorganize lessons, you have the option to move any lesson plan to a different unit within the same course, or to a different course and unit completely.
c) Deleting Lessons - In general, lesson plans are never deleted unless the creating teacher intentionally determines to remove them. Lesson plans could be hidden from view, but unless the user has been deleted from the school’s account, or the teacher decides to delete a lesson, any lesson plan created will remain in the database. For the sake of clarity in reporting and efficiency of use, teachers are encouraged to delete any lessons they will no longer need.
4) Review Standards/Benchmark alignment in Lesson Plans - See how your existing lesson plans achieve the identified standards/benchmarks of the course as you consider what your needs are for the new year.