How do you pace a new curriculum when you're forced to move too fast?
Administrative mandates requiring a rigid one-lesson-per-day schedule make it nearly impossible to slow down for struggling students or those with learning disabilities. Teachers are left with a packed schedule that prevents them from pulling small groups, working one-on-one, or adequately pacing out a new subject's syllabus.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Searching online for public district pacing calendars or teacher-shared resources and tools.
- 2Handing out simplified versions of the same lesson as differentiated materials and pretending admin approved it
- 3Reading everything out loud for every subject including text and directions
- 4Highlighting key parts of the curriculum every day to free up time for additional practice or small groups
- 5Relying on parents to get tutors for struggling kids
- 6Using a pacing guide with check boxes
- 7Relying on curriculum as a guide with lesson plan software featuring auto-populating essential questions and standards
- 8Asking mentors and team members to explain the curriculum
- 9Dividing curriculum components into groups based on priority (have to do, would like to do, don't worry about)
- 10Editing lessons hard down to the one or two most important objectives and skipping sections or entire lessons
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I’m teaching environmental science this year and I’m having difficulty pacing out my year, does anybody have any resource/tool they can share ?”source ↗
“The problem is, I feel like I can’t even understand what I’m supposed to do, how to do it, or (possibly most importantly) what to skip.”source ↗
“However, by the time I’m planning it all falls apart.”source ↗
“I have not had this problem before but I feel like I’m reading a new language.”source ↗
“I have been told by my administration I have to teach exactly one lesson per subject every day… I am elementary. I can’t slow down for my struggling students.”source ↗
“My students are getting overwhelmed because they have learning disabilities and I’m not allowed to slow down my pace.”source ↗
“And if they don’t understand, I still have to go onto the next lesson. My schedule is absolutely packed and I don’t have time to pull small groups or work one on one.”source ↗
“What tools would help in making sure you have taught the required standards?”source ↗
“Our pacing guide has them listed”source ↗
Where this came up
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