Forethought: Stepping Through Process

Transcription

1 Forethought: Stepping Through Process Setting up Your Planner: The first time you login, the Setup My Planner wizard will appear and guide you through setting up your schedule of courses. Scheduling Strategies: Forethought allows you to setup as many course schedules as you need. Each schedule contains courses and special entries, such as notes, planning period information, or sub notes. As a general rule, the fewer schedules you maintain, the simpler the product is to use. Elementary teachers should almost always select a single day schedule. Schedule Entry Types: You may add up to 12 entries in your schedule. A course with learning standards o This is the typical schedule entry that allows you enter and track learning standards and add activities. A course that mirrors another course in my schedule o Use this only when repeating preps or courses, allowing for modifications. Mirrored courses allow you to show the same content more than once in your schedule. If something in a class needs to change for a day, you can edit that day's mirrored course and it will no longer mirror for that day. It may, however, be simpler to enter the course once and have special entries to indicate notes for other classes. A Special Entry o A special entry can be any non-academic entry (it does not connect to any curriculum or standards) or can be notes about another class. Examples might include "Lunch", "Planning Period" or even a general "Notes" section.

2 Creating a Schedule: Enter the name of the schedule. Typical examples might include: Normal Day Add Entries to the Schedule: This screen allows you to add, edit and organize the entries in your schedule. Add Entry: Create a course with learning standards, mirrored course, or special entry Edit Entry: Modify information about a selected entry Move Up/Move Down: Change the order of a selected entry in your schedule Remove Entry: Removes a course from your schedule Note: Removing an entry from your schedule does not erase or modify information already in your lesson planner. So deleting English I at the end of a semester will not wipe out your lesson plans for that semester. To add a schedule entry: 1. Click the Add an Entry button 2. Select one of the entry types listed above 3. Expand the course tree and select a course (if appropriate) 4. Click the Next button 5. Change the name of the course to suit your needs which could also include time and period if desired Repeat this process until your schedule is complete. Editing the Name of the Period/Course: On the screen to edit the name of the entry, your class roster schedule will appear. You can connect your course entry to your group of students. To link multiple class sections to one course entry, you can check more than one. For example, if you teach three classes of Algebra, you can check all three of your student sections.

3 Complete the wizard by clicking "Begin Using Forethought. If you ever need to change anything in the planner set-up itself (not previous day s lessons): Change Your Settings: You can change any information entered in the setup wizard by clicking the Change My Settings > My Schedules button at the bottom of your planner. This allows you to easily go back and change anything in any schedule at any time. All future days planned will make use of those changes. If you want to share your lesson plans with another teacher- you can share by stepping through the Share My Planner process. It will walk you through it. For other teachers to be able to see your planner, you must invite them through this step. Principals can see your lesson planner. Should you decide to share plans- you can copy and paste between lesson planners. Reminder: If you click on a day in the planner, it will bold that day on the calendar whether you enter anything or not.

4 Lesson Plan Components 1. Calendar: This will show you the current month and allow you to easily change between months using the < > buttons. Days with lesson plans will appear as bold. This allows you to easily keep track of which days you have and have not planned. Clicking on any day will let you plan for that day. It is also possible to see what lesson you used a year ago. Lesson plans are not deleted from year to year. 2. Planners List: This will be a list of all available planners. It will always start with your own personal planner (My Lesson Planner) followed by any team or shared planners you may be able to view. 3. Planner Settings and Search Lesson Plans: Here you can search for lesson plans by keyword or by phrase. Planner Options allow you to "Create a New Team." In addition, "Change My Settings" will allow you to edit your schedule and "Share your Planner" with other staff members. 4. Lesson Plan Content Area: Clicking an entry in the lesson plan area makes that entry active. You can then begin planning for that particular course by using the toolbar options to customize your lesson content and by adding in learning standards from the Curriculum Pane on the right. 5. Curriculum Pane - Learning Standards List: Selecting a course in the lesson planning area updates the learning standards to reflect the selected course. 6. Curriculum Pane - Details and Resources: Selecting a learning standard displays 1) any linked resources; 2) associated TEKS/TAKS and Knowledge & Skill Statements (TX customers only); 3) a graph of tested standard (Aware customers only); and 4) the history of when that standard was previously used in a lesson plan.

5 Entering Lesson Plans: Click on an entry in the lesson plan area to make it active. Then simply type in the white space. Lesson Plan Toolbars: The Forethought lesson planner uses two toolbars, the primary and course entry toolbar. The follow list of buttons will cover every item on the Primary and Course Entry toolbars. Change Today's Schedule Re-add course entries Notes for the Substitute Teacher A New Special Entry Delete Today's Plans - use this to remove content and a schedule for all entries on a calendar day. There is no undelete! Save - Saves the current day or week of lessons depending on viewing mode. The save button is "greyed" out if nothing has been added to your plans. Once any editing has been done to an entry, the save button will turn blue allowing a click to save your changes. Also, to avoid loss of changes, the button will be automatically selected approximately 60 seconds after becoming active. Also, if you click another day or attempt to close your browser, plans will automatically save or you will be prompted to save depending on your web browser. Print - This option will allow you to export or print your plans in a variety of formats. Either a single day or a week can be exported. This also includes the Checklist Report option. Spell Check - This option will check your current entry for spelling errors. This is typically not required in most modern browsers as incorrect words will highlight in red. Undo/Redo - These buttons will remove or replace the last editing action inside the active entry. Link - Use this button to add a weblink to the page. This is only needed in browsers that do not automatically hyperlink html links. Table - This button will launch a whole new interface that will allow you to insert a table. When working with a table a new toolbar will appear to give you necessary options to manipulate the table design.

6 Insert a Line - This button will insert a full-width line in your entry to provide a visual divider. Insert Image - Use this option to bring up a menu that will allow you to upload and insert an image into your entry. Text Font and Size - These two drop down lists will allow you to adjust the font type and the font size of the selected or future text. Bold - This will bold the selected text or enable bold for future typing. Italics - This will italicize the selected text or set italics for future typing. Underline - This will underline the selected text or set future typing for underlining. Strikethrough - Use this option to add a strikethrough to text. Text Alignment Menu - Provides a drop-down list of text alignment options to left, center, or right align. Numbered List - This option will insert a numbered list for selected text or start one for future typing. Bulleted List - This option will create a bulleted list for selected text or start one for future typing. Indent/Out dent - These options will create indentations or out dentations in the selected entry. Colors - Use this button to view a color wheel. Select a color on the wheel to change selected text or new text to that specific color. Subscript/Superscript - Use these options to type text as either subscript or superscript. Previous/Next - These arrows will allow you to move forward or backwards one day or one week.

7 View Planner Options: Click the week view icon in the toolbar and "View Week's Plans" to access your five-day plans. This view displays five days of lesson plans on one screen. You have the ability to enter and edit lesson plans on this view, but you cannot add standards to a lesson. More options available in week view appear in a different section of the online help. To return to the planner view, double-click a day. Plan by Course: This displays a week view of only one course at a time. Use the drop-down option to toggle between your courses.

8 Entering a Lesson: Click an entry in the lesson plan content area. It will become active, and you can begin entering your lesson information. Type lesson plans within the white space of the entry. URL's will also become hyperlinked in this space. Don't forget to Save! Don't forget to save early and save often! Entry Options Print: Prints single lesson entry Lesson Options: Moves entry up or down in plans and change the entry's title and details (just for the one day). Set as Default Text for Entry: To edit the template text for an entry, create the new template in the editor. Then select "Set as Default Text." For every new day in your planner, the new template will appear only for that entry. Remove from Day's Plans: Remove this entry only from the day's lesson plans, not the schedule itself. Add Attachment: Browse for and attach documents (.doc,.pdf,.xls, etc.) to the lesson plan.

9 Checklists: If enabled by the district, checklists will be available for every entry in a schedule. Click on the text "click here to select checklist items for this lesson." Simply check the item(s) in the checklist to note if you utilized them during the lesson of that day. Use close to collapse the checklists. These results can be tabulated for principals and district personnel. Advanced Features Forethought allows you to copy lesson plans with a variety of options. When you copy the following ways, it will copy Learning Standards, text and Attachments. Here are the ways you can copy lesson plans: Individual Planner Copy from daily entry to a daily entry (same course) using Send Lesson To button Copy from day to day or week to week in Copy Wizard from week view Shared Planner Copy entry from shared to individual (same course) using Send Lesson To button Copy entire week from shared to individual (matching like courses) using Copy Week in week view Copy day or week from shared to individual (matching like courses) using Copy Wizard in week view Team Planner Copy entry from team to individual (same course) using Send Lesson To button Copy entire week from team to individual (matching like courses) using Copy Week in week view Copy day or week from team to individual (matching like courses) using Copy Wizard in week view What can you not do? Copy from individual to a shared Copy from individual to a team NEVER edit a shared planner - only edit your individual or team

10 Copying Lesson Plans: The Forethought lesson planner gives you the flexibility to copy individual lessons, a day's lesson plans or even an entire week. Note: Plans must be in Week View to see the Copy Wizard. Copy Wizard Options Copy Content Copy instructional days from year to year Shift lesson plans a day Copy Content 1. Choose to copy content for an entire day or week. 2. Select the day or week to be copied 3. Select the destination day or week to copy content. 4. Confirm your selections and click Finish. Notes regarding copying: If no lesson structure exists for that date, the first schedule in your list will be used. Lessons of the same course will be copied in the order they appear in the target date. Additional plans will not be automatically entered. For example, if you have two U.S. History plans in the source planner and only one in the target date, only the first will be copied. The second will not be added. Content will be added to any existing lessons (appended) that exist in the target dates or weeks. There is no "undo" when you copy lessons. Copy Instructional Days from year to year: We strongly recommend that you do NOT copy the entire year. There is no undo option! It is best to copy a couple weeks at a time by limiting the copy down to 10 to 15 instructional days. Shift Lesson Plans a Day: For occasions such as an inclement weather day or an unexpected event, lesson plans can be shifted ahead one day. Shifting lesson plans will move all content up one day from the day selected to the end of the instructional year. Note: If any content on the last day of the instructional year exists, it will be removed.

11 Sharing Lesson Planners: Teachers can share lesson plans with other staff members in their school and district. Items to consider: You can view and print a shared planner. In addition, you can copy lesson entries from a shared planner to your own planner. You cannot edit a shared planner. Selecting staff members to view your planner does not automatically give you access to view their lesson planner. Both staff members have to share. Principals already have access to your planner; you do not have to share with them. Sharing your Planner 1. Change My Settings 2. Share My Planner 3. Add or Remove a Teacher