This is the boring side of teaching many don't talk about but I think it is important to start your year with some organization, to help create a flow for how your year might look. This calendar is by no means going to be followed exactly...some units will take longer and some short but overall it gives you an idea of when you need to wrap things up and move on. Biology in the state of Texas is a subject that is state tested, and so it is somewhat important to get through content before the test. Here are some ideas on where you can start to begin making your pacing calendar.
Create a google sheet or excel spreadsheet and fill it out according to your school calendar, by grading periods. For example, we are on a 9 week grading period, and so that is how the calendar is group.
Insert all holidays, work days, exam weeks, testing dates, etc.
Above is my pacing calendar for the fall semester.
3. Easiest place to start is dividing your units in half. If you have 12 units, you probably need to cover 5-6 in first semester. Estimate. If you have taught before, then you have a pretty good idea of how much you can cover in 1 semester.
4. Then start adding your start dates for each unit, and color code each unit in a different color. Estimate about how long your unit will take. Most of ours are 2-3 weeks long. In my Microbiology class, those units are longer, because we don't have as many. You can see a 1st semester for that class below.
5. Things to consider:
We try to end units before large breaks. For example Topic 4 (orange) we have ending before Thanksgiving break.
We have specific testing dates at our school. We can only test on B days, so I also try to make note of those when planning start and stop dates.
We try not test on Mondays, so most end dates are going to be middle of the week...some exceptions do occur because of our testing calendar.
We try not to end units/assess after short holidays. Topic 1 ends 3 days after a 3 day weekend, because we don't want to test the very next day, we can't test the day after that because its an A day, so that puts us ending on that Thursday.
These are just some of the things to consider when creating a pacing calendar.
Here is a view only link to the calendar, feel free to make a copy and create your own! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J1PoNaW2GK-jln3lWXU-jEcg0OhR_CQIuLxVK2l_fSk/edit?usp=sharing
Happy Teaching!
Mrs. Townsend
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