CONTINGENCY PLAN

A contingency plan is not absolutely necessary, but it's always a good idea to have some idea of what you will do if things don't go as planned.

In fact, most of the time your lessons will probably not proceed exactly as you have planned them. But there are many things that can happen in the course of a lesson that will require you to do something different. In such cases, flexibility (and a well thought out contingency plan) will save your lesson from disaster.

As you plan your lesson, you ought to think of things that could possibly happen as you teach it that would require some sort of adjustment. Write your ideas for those adjustments in the contingency plan section of your lesson plan. Then, if you have to make changes, you will be ready.

Here are some things that might require you to modify your lesson while you are teaching it. They are followed by some possible "contingency plan" adjustments.

A practice activity is unexpectedly difficult for your students.

CONTINGENCY PLAN:
Use an alternate, simplified version of the practice activity.

A practice exercise is unexpectedly easy for your students. They find it boring, but you still want to check their ability, just to make sure.

CONTINGENCY PLAN:
Have students do only the even numbered items in the exercise.

Just as you are starting your lesson, for which you have prepared a beautiful overhead transparency, the projector bulb burns out, and there is no spare.

CONTINGENCY PLAN:
Draw or write a simplified version of the transparency on the chalkboard. OR Give an alternate ("spare") lesson you have on hand for emergencies, and save this lesson for another day.

Get the idea? Now you try it. See if you can come up with contingency plans for the following teaching situations.

• When your students arrive, they explain that the homework was too difficult. None of them has done it..
• To your surprise, nearly twice as many students as normal show up to class. You have only 10 handouts for 19 students, and no copy machine nearby.
• While you are showing a video as part of your lesson, the VCR starts making funny noises. When you investigate, you find that it has "eaten" the tape. It will require a technician to fix it.
• Your students learn quickly, and you come to the end of your planned lesson for the day ten minutes before the end of the class hour. You're not supposed to let the students out of class early.

One of Murphy's laws is "If anything can go wrong, it will." However, with some flexibility and a good contingency plan, you can survive almost any classroom emergency. Imagine the trouble you could have if you don't make a contingency plan!