When I was asked to look at Lesson Planet and write up my thoughts, I was eager. I love looking at new resources that I can add to my arsenal of teaching materials. I have decided that as I get older, I don’t like to teach the same lessons every year. While those lessons are new and great to the students, I find that after two years in a row, I find them boring. My high school English class will soon begin reading the play Twelve Angry Men so I used that as my piece of literature to explore on Lesson Planet.
I have to admit that Lesson Planet was not what I expected. By the name I thought it would be another website full of lessons; however, instead it is a search engine to find lessons on other websites which was intriguing. So what makes it different than just going to Google or Yahoo? Unlike your typical search engine, the results are filtered. You will not find the eight million results that you would find on a typical search. Instead, certified teachers have reviewed each of the lessons, apps, worksheets, printables, or templates to ensure that you are only viewing high quality results.
Before going any further, it is probably important to note that this is not a free website. You receive a ten-day free trial to see if it’s a site you like. After that ten-day free trial, there are three packages you can subscribe to depending on how many records you want to access with your search ranging in price from $24 to $60. Also, you must enter your credit card information for the trial to begin and remember to cancel it within the ten-day period. Cancellation is easy if you do decide you do not want to continue the subscription after the ten day period.
Back to how it works. After searching for a topic, such as Twelve Angry Men, you will receive a list of resources that could be useful for teaching that particular unit. It appears that you can narrow down your results using some Boolean search techniques. For example, when I searched for Twelve Angry Men, I had 485 resources lists. However, when I typed “Twelve Angry Men”, I only had seven. This was much more manageable. If you do have the long list of results, you can narrow those down by grade, subject, or type of resource you are looking for in order to make it more manageable as well.
Once you have found a resource you are interested in finding out more about, you can click on it to see the full review which includes a summary, how many views and downloads its had, and what materials are included in the resource. Some results even include instructional ideas, classroom considerations, pros and cons of the lesson, and standards. If you’ve found a resource you’re interested in looking at more closely, you can click “Go to Lesson Plan,” and you will be taken to the original website that hosts the resource.
If you aren’t looking for a specific unit or area, you an also browse the lessons by subject such as Language Arts. And then narrow it down by grade level or subtopics such as research, literature, or writing.
Overall because a teacher’s time is precious and there never seems to be enough of it, Lesson Planet could be an effective way to use time more wisely; however, if you are an effective web searcher or have some extra time, you could probably find the same resources through your favorite, free search engine.
Kimberly Sloane is a mom and teacher who lives in San Augustine, Texas.
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