The Pre-Planning Stage

Pre-planning is the thinking and small assessment work a teacher does before writing a unit plan or any lesson plans for that unit. It looks at the students, the content, the resources, and the time available. Without it, units and lessons get built on shaky ground.

What pre-planning is

Pre-planning is the thinking and small assessment work a teacher does before writing a unit plan or lesson plans for that unit.

“Pre-planning is before planning units and lessons.” A teacher about to write a unit plan stops first to do five tasks. Once those tasks are done, the unit plan can be written with much better information.

The five tasks are:

1. Decide content and processes for the unit.
2. Check entry-level skills (diagnostic assessment).
3. Identify needed activities.
4. Identify needed resources.
5. Identify needed methods.

Each one feeds the unit plan that follows. A teacher who skips pre-planning starts the unit plan blind to what students know, what activities are needed, and what resources are available.

Task 1: Decide content and processes

The first pre-planning task is to identify what content and processes the unit will cover.

The content comes from the curriculum and the school’s year plan. The teacher reads the relevant curriculum learning outcomes and identifies what falls into this unit.

The processes are the thinking skills the unit will develop. Imagining, problem-solving, analyzing, organizing, communicating, comparing, evaluating. Most units develop one or two main processes alongside the content.

It is clear that content and process cannot be separated. A unit on the water cycle that develops analytical skill is different from a unit on the water cycle that develops imaginative skill. Both teach the water cycle. They differ in what students do with the content.

A teacher who pre-plans content and processes together produces a unit that has both substance and skill development. A teacher who plans only content produces students who can recite but not think.

Task 2: Check entry-level skills (diagnostic assessment)

The second pre-planning task is the most consequential. The teacher needs to know what students can already do before the unit begins.

Example: a unit on argumentative essay writing. Before the unit starts, the teacher needs to know whether students can already write basic paragraphs. If they cannot, the unit cannot start with argumentative writing. Earlier work has to come first.

The way to find out is diagnostic assessment. The teacher gives students a small task that reveals their current skill level. The task is not graded. It is read for information.

For an argumentative-essay unit, the diagnostic task might be: “Write one paragraph about your favorite season, with a topic sentence and a supporting sentence.” The teacher reads each student’s response and notes what is present and what is missing.

Is sharp on what diagnostic assessment is not. It is not a grade-giving exercise. It is not a test the student is judged on. The purpose is to identify where each student needs support, not to rank them.

To do this well, the teacher needs a checklist of what to look for. For paragraph-writing diagnostic, a checklist might include:

1. Does the paragraph have a clear topic sentence?
2. Are supporting sentences related to the topic?
3. Are spelling errors significant or minor?
4. Is vocabulary appropriate to the topic?
5. Is the structure (introduction, body, conclusion) present even in basic form?

The teacher reads each student’s writing against the checklist. They note where each student is strong and where each is weak. The result is a clear picture of who is ready for argumentative writing and who needs preparation first.

Why marks fail diagnostic assessment

A teacher might think: I will look at last term’s English exam results. Students with high marks have entry-level skills; students with low marks do not. This shortcut feels efficient.

It fails. A student scoring 90 percent on an English exam may still have weak essay writing. The 90 percent could come from strong reading comprehension and grammar, with the essay-writing question worth only 10 marks and answered partially. The high score does not tell the teacher about essay-writing specifically.

A student scoring 50 percent may also have very weak essay-writing. Or surprisingly strong essay-writing on a year when other parts of the exam dragged the score down. Marks aggregate across many skills. They do not isolate the one skill the new unit needs.

Diagnostic assessment with a checklist gives precise information. The teacher knows exactly which students can write a topic sentence and which cannot. The teacher knows where to start the unit.

A teacher who uses last year’s marks as a proxy is guessing. A teacher who uses diagnostic assessment is informed.

Task 3-5: Identify activities, resources, methods

The remaining three pre-planning tasks support the unit plan.

Identify needed activities. What activities will the unit include? Group work, experiments, presentations, individual writing? Listing them in advance allows the teacher to think about flow and sequence before the unit begins.

Identify needed resources. What materials does the unit need? Printed handouts, lab equipment, textbooks, art supplies, internet access? That mid-unit resource gaps are expensive. A unit that calls for role-play props that are not available wastes class time when the props turn out to be missing. Pre-planning catches this in advance.

Identify needed methods. What teaching methods will the unit use? Direct instruction, cooperative learning, inquiry, lecture, discussion? The methods follow from the content type and the processes being developed. Listing methods in advance ensures the teacher has the tools they need.

These three tasks are quicker than diagnostic assessment but equally important. Together they save mid-unit problems by surfacing them at the start.

How pre-planning saves time

A teacher who skips pre-planning often hits problems mid-unit:

1. Students cannot do the new work because they lack a prerequisite skill.
2. A planned activity falls apart because materials are missing.
3. The chosen method does not match the content and produces confusion.
4. The unit overruns the available time.

Each of these problems costs a class period or more. Recovery requires going back, fixing the gap, and continuing. Multiple problems compound.

Pre-planning catches most of these before they happen. The teacher knows the entry-level skills, so the unit starts at the right place. Resources are gathered, so activities work. Methods are chosen, so they fit the content. Time is allocated, so the unit fits the term.

The pre-planning stage takes hours, sometimes a day or two for a major unit. It saves much more time over the unit’s run than it costs upfront.

Flashcard

Why does pre-planning saves time even though it takes time upfront?

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Answer

Mid-unit problems cost more than pre-planning catches them

Without pre-planning, students hit prerequisite gaps, activities fail from missing materials, methods mismatch content, and the unit overruns time.

Pre-planning catches these in advance. The hours spent up front save many more hours during the unit’s run.

Pre-planning in lesson context

Pre-planning is mostly a unit-level task, but it has a lesson-level version too.

Before a single lesson, a teacher can briefly check:

1. Lesson content: Is it ready? Have I prepared the example, the demonstration, the activity?
2. Student readiness: Did the previous lesson land? Do students have the prerequisite for today’s content?
3. Resources: Are the materials in the classroom or my bag right now?
4. Method: Have I thought through how I will teach this specifically?
5. Assessment: How will I check whether the lesson worked?

These checks take a few minutes. They prevent the most common reasons a lesson goes wrong: unprepared content, missing materials, wrong method for the audience.

A new teacher should do this check explicitly before every lesson. An experienced teacher may do it implicitly, having internalized the habit. Either way, the check happens.

This concludes the chapter on planning considerations.

Flashcard

What are the five tasks of pre-planning before a unit begins?

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Answer

Decide, check, identify, identify, identify

1. Decide what content and processes the unit will cover.

2. Check entry-level skills with diagnostic assessment.

3. Identify needed activities.

4. Identify needed resources.

5. Identify needed methods.

The pre-planning stage takes hours. The hours saved during the unit’s run are much greater.