Naomi Meredith [00:00:00]:

One of the most time consuming tasks as an elementary STEM teacher is planning lessons. While planning lessons is one of my most favorite things to do as a teacher, it does require a lot of work, especially if you are teaching multiple grade levels. How do you keep track of it all, not to mention make sure that you are adding in the necessary content for the year along with grade-level standards? If you've taught STEM for even just a year, it's important to take a step back before you just dive into your lesson plans and see what you have taught so far. How I like to do this is by conducting an overall lesson audit. And what do I mean by the words lesson audit? In this episode, I'll be sharing with you how important a STEM lesson audit is and what this means for you and your future planning. If you are listening to this episode as it is coming out, I am so happy to be back. So I've had a bunch of episodes still come out in the month of June. Shout out to my podcast manager, Andrea. She kept the podcast running like she always does, but she's amazing. And we made sure that two episodes a week were still coming out for you while I was getting married and then going on my very long honeymoon. So I apologize if I'm a little bit rusty in this episode, but I'm just so happy to be back. It was the most memorable month of my entire life. And now here we are back in action when it comes to all of the STEM content and all of the goodies and things that I have planned for you and help support you in your STEM space. In fact, while I was on my honeymoon now, I didn't do a whole lot of work, but here and there, I would check-in. I got this really sweet message from one of you out there, and I wanted you to take a listen. 

Kelly [00:02:36]:

Hi, Naomi Meredith. I just wanted to say that your podcast is absolutely awesome. Thank you so much for making it so many awesome resources for students. So excited to just keep listening and implementing some of your ideas into my second-grade science classroom. Thank you so much, Kelly Babb from Murphysboro, Tennessee.

Naomi Meredith [00:02:55]:

Thank you so much, Kelly, for your kind message. It absolutely made my day. If you want to leave a message like she did, or even if you have a question for me, you can do that. It's absolutely free. Super easy to do off of your phone. If you go to Naomimeredith.com/voice, you can leave a voice message just like that one. 

Before you jump into your researching and brainstorming and STEM lesson planning, it's always great to take a step back and reflect on how the year went. And oftentimes, because we are so busy with our hands in so many baskets and planning the lessons, going to the meetings and running the after-school clubs, and cleaning out our rooms for summer, we don't necessarily take the time to actually do this and think about our overall year and how everything went. And if we don't take a step back and actually do this, we might even find ourselves in a space just like before, where you are rushing from lesson to lesson. You don't know if things are working, but you just made sure you had a lesson go out there. But it might be a little bit random. And then it's this vicious cycle, and you just never feel like you can catch up. So taking the time now when lessons are fresh in your mind, doing a STEM lesson audit can be extremely valuable. Also, when it comes to this, this is really going to make sure that the lessons that you have taught are actually meaningful. STEM class should be really fun. Okay, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it. It is an absolute blast. However, it still needs to be meaningful. You can still have these really fun lessons for your students that are also high level and even work on collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and also are tied to standards. It does take a bit of pre-planning on your part, but let's take that time now to do that lesson audit to really think through those lessons. 

So when you are planning, you are keeping all of these important factors in mind. I sometimes get messages from you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore if you're not already following me over there, but I get a lot of messages over there. And many of you have admin who aren't super supportive of what is going on in the STEM space. Trust me, I absolutely get it episode to come in the future. I've had non-supportive admin before when it comes to STEM, but there are a few factors that can come into this, and there are some things you cannot control, but some things you can control. And more often than not, it's the curriculum that we're teaching because we are walking into these spaces that have limited supplies and zero curriculum. So instead of just going for that wow factor like, oh yeah, let's play with robots today. Oh, let's play with Lego bricks today. There are some ways to use these awesome tools but still be meaningful with them. And I talk about this all the time, and again, I know it's a lot of work. I've done it. I totally get it. But my goal here, especially with this podcast, is to help you be successful and prepare you with these tools and tips, and resources so that you do have high-level lessons and you do have an amazing space that your admin is extremely proud of and wants to tell everybody about it. I know that you love what you do. Almost every STEM teacher I talk to absolutely loves the position that they are in. But let's be real. 

Think about your lessons. Are your lessons just fun and fluffy but really don't have anything to back them up? Or are your lessons still fun but have really highly engaging learning experiences that are cross-curricular and standards-based? So this lesson audit that I'm going to walk you through in this episode is really going to give you that deep thinking and reflection so that if there are adjustments, you need to be made, which is okay because that's part of teaching. You don't get it right the first time. I never did. So this is all part of the teaching and learning process and just how you can prepare going forward with your lesson planning. To do this audit, first, you need to set it up so you can do this. I would prefer digital. That way, you can link things. Sure, go ahead, do this on paper. But I would just say do it digitally. And then you have unlimited room. But anyway, create a table or a spreadsheet. And on that spreadsheet, you're first going to have major categories when it comes to STEM themes. So those things that I am thinking about are Makerspace, digital citizenship, 3D printing, coding, robotics, those major themes when it comes to STEM, those big major things that you are going to teach your students, you're going to have those big categories and have different sections. You could create a different spreadsheet for each of these, or you could just have them all on one page. Then you're going to have different columns for things that you are going to analyze for every single lesson that you taught your students and for every single grade. So like I said, you probably want to do this digitally because there are a lot of things you're going to analyze to make sure that you are teaching these high-level lessons. So what are those things that you need to look for for each of these lessons? Here are some indicators that you want to add to your columns. The type of lesson that you're teaching, is it a multi-day lesson? A one-day lesson? A STEM station. What kind is it? Are you seeing patterns? Are you doing the same type of lesson teaching? How long is it taking you to teach that lesson? If you are doing a project, what kind of structure if you are using when it comes to your lessons, are you doing too many structures? Are you using the engineering design process? Are you only using it one time in the year, and then you're frustrated that kids don't know it? Keep track of these things. Also, look at your lessons from year to year to year. Is there a progression of learning, or are your lessons really random? Are they not building off the year after next? They don't have to. But when it comes to having the same kids year after year, is there a way that you can have your lessons build off of each other? Yes or no? Also, keep track of the standards that you taught. This might be a little bit annoying and frustrating. Maybe if you're not planning with standards, you can also hear little Frederick in the back squeaking his ball. So I apologize for that. But this is very important. Even though most of you don't have STEM standards currently, your lessons need to be rooted in something. It's not just some fluffy random lesson. I'm going to say that probably a lot, but keep track of all of these things. So for every lesson, as I said, that you teach all of your students and all of the grades, you're going to go through all of these indicators and just keep track of the things that you have done or maybe you haven't done them yet. 

Again, this is more of an audit, not so much a plan. So if you have some holes and gaps, that's absolutely okay. Leave them blank. You don't have to fill them in quite yet. That's when you're done with this audit, you'll actually get into that lesson planning. Once you're going through and conducting that audit, this will really help you organize your whole entire year. So you have that spreadsheet set up. You've gone through every single lesson that you've taught kids. Then comes the part where you're actually reviewing the audit. So you have filled in this information. What are you going to do with it now? So here are some important things that you should definitely think about. Which STEM topics are you really strong at? Are you really strong at doing those maker space projects? Is that something that you are doing in your classroom all the time? Are there other areas that you would like to try or that you haven't even touched in your classroom? Maybe you've been a bit wary about 3D printing, but you do have a 3D printer. Or maybe you don't have a 3D printer, and you still can do 3D printing. Side note, I do have a whole playlist about 3D printing. So I have actually categorized all of my lessons based on the topics that I've talked about here on this podcast. So if you go to Naomimeredith.com/podcastplaylist, you can see all of those categorized playlists, and there's one all about 3D printing. 

So with this audit, think about those big major themes. Are there things that you are really heavy in, and are there areas that you are a little bit less than or you haven't even taught yet? Also, compare grade levels when it comes to this. All grade levels can do all of these topics. It's just going to look differently for their age. So are you doing some things more than others? So there are a lot of different questions when it comes to even just those major themes in STEM. Also, look at what types of lessons you are teaching. Are you doing all whole group the entire year? It's easy to start off with a whole group, and I actually recommend that as you get to know your students. But there are a lot of different structures that you can use in your classroom if you prepare students to get to these structures and you keep practicing them, they are extremely successful, just like STEM stations. That was something I was scared to do, but it was absolutely magical in my primary classes. So look at the types of lessons you are teaching that also go into whether you are teaching a lot of one-day lessons or multi-day lessons. Sure, maybe you'll see the school for an entire week, and you don't want to manage multi-day lessons. But at the same time, you are planning week to week to week because you have to have a brand new lesson every single week. So think about that. You can mix it up, have a variety of multi-day lessons and also one-day lessons. There is value in both, but this will actually help you look at, oh, that's why I'm feeling rushed. I have to plan a brand new lesson every week. Fun fact you don't it's okay to repeat things with kids and help them feel confident in their skills. They're probably not doing what they're doing in your class at home, and it's okay to do it again. So don't feel like it has to be a brand new surprise every time it is okay. Think about a classroom teacher. Most of us here were classroom teachers before we set up those systems and routines with kids. And they might do a lot of things over and over and over again every single day of the school year. So same with you in a STEM classroom. It's okay to repeat things a major thing too. When looking at your audit, are you teaching standards? Are you only planning with some standards? Are you only planning with your science NGSS standards? Have you even touched the math standards or the ELA, or even the ISTI standards for students? Yes, there are many standards to look at but become familiar with them, and then it will be automatic. This is really important to add in your audit whether or not your admin looks at your lesson plans. It's good to keep track of those standards that you're teaching, especially when you have all of these grade levels. You want to make sure that you hit most of those things in your classroom, and you're like, oh wait, we've already done a big unit about this, then let's do something else. So here and there, I get an idea. I'm like, oh, I've already taught a lesson like that. I can save this for code teaching or vice versa. 

And also, I mentioned this before. When you're looking at your audit, do you have a progression of learning with your lessons? This is a little tricky in filling out the puzzle pieces. Where do you want your students to be in kindergarten and then all the way up to fifth grade? Or do some of you even have up to 8th grade? How do you want them to progress through their skills over the years? And this might change a little bit too. When we talked to Jennifer Mayhan in her episode, when she was talking about grant writing, we had a lot of similarities where we saw in our programs the first couple of years, the students were all around the same level when it came to their skills. But over time, we needed to progress their learning and really build off year after year so that students were building up their skills, and as they were learning, they were getting better, which is great. That's a good thing. That's really good. So think about your lessons. Are you always doing the same thing, k through two? Or can you start adding in that progression of learning as students become comfortable with their skills and diving in and learning more as a recap? Here is how you can have your powerful STEM lesson audit to help prepare you for your next set of lessons. First, set up your audit. So do that digitally and create a spreadsheet with those different categories and columns. Next. Well, actually do the audit. This might take some time to search through, and this will help you get organized too when you do start implementing your year Alum plan. 

And finally, it can be a little bit scary, but review your audit. You do want to go through and draw some conclusions because this is really going to help you be more cohesive with the lessons that you're teaching your students and, again, make you feel like you're not rushing with all of your things but you're being prepared for the entire year. Now, this spreadsheet is actually a template I have already created. This was one of those things that was floating in my mind for such a long time, and then I had to draw it down. I have all these notebooks I carry with me, but I had to actually draw them and then create them. And this is actually part of the beginning of the STEM into summer group coaching program. So this is actually what my students are doing in this program where they did a whole year-long plan lesson audit, and I gave them feedback and along with that a supply inventory. So this was super cool for me because I got to see behind the scenes in these teachers' classrooms. I got to see exactly how their years have gone so far, the materials that they have on hand to give me that background of, oh, okay, here's how your program is and what you're doing with all these grade levels so that I have been able to prepare lessons that we're going through each week to then build up their year-long plan. So this is, again, a really great way to put together where your program is at and how to build for the future. 

So this template is all in my STEM into Summer group coaching program. You can actually still jump in. It's not too late. So, again, if you're listening to this in real-time, it is July 2023. You can still jump in. It'll be at a discounted price. So check that out at Naomi. Meredith.com STEM into summer. And I mentioned this here before, I'm really excited about this, but the elementary STEM coach is coaching. So I have group coaching, and a lot of you have reached out that you have been interested in working with me one on one. So maybe a group setting isn't your thing, but you want to spend some time with me. And so now that I'm all married up, back from my honeymoon, I have spots available as well when it comes to working with you one on one. So there are different levels of time that we can work with. So it'll be for the short term overall, but there are different amounts of time that we can work together. So whether it is this lesson audit, if that's something you want to work on, we can work on that together, give you the spreadsheet for that, or if it's even something else that you would like to learn and explore, maybe you want to create a whole robotics unit with me, then that is something we can also work on. So whatever your needs are, I'm the coach. I'm your guide to help you along the way. But if you are interested in that, you can go to Naomi Meredith.com Coaching. Again, thank you so much for having me back here on the podcast. And I am so excited to help support you with this other layer that is here in this whole elementary STEM coach world and online space, and so thrilled to have this opportunity to work with you, live and be with you every step of the way. So thank you so much again for being here, and I will chat with you soon.