When Carolyn Khan first started at Coconut Creek High School in Florida, she had a problem with spending too much time preparing lessons.
Specifically, Carolyn found herself spending hour after hour of her personal time planning health science lesson plans. She loved her work, but it started keeping her from friends and family.
Then she heard about HealthCenter21 from a teacher at McFatter Technical College, and she tried it right away.
As Carolyn used HealthCenter21, she realized that it provided everything she needs for preparing interesting, engaging lessons.
It also let her go home on time.
So how did Carolyn do it? And how can you save time like her?
Carolyn’s Struggle: Lesson Planning Took Too Much Time
Like many CTE teachers, Carolyn spent a lot of free time planning lessons and creating resources.
She used to go into school for three weeks during her summer break to meet with other teachers and do work without pay. She’d prepare lesson plans, develop resources, and lay out a course syllabus for the next nine weeks.
Carolyn didn’t have to work this way, but she wanted to present the best lessons to her students. She wanted to give them the education that would help them succeed in the health care field.
While she could get the results she wanted for her students, planning the lessons became intense — even exhausting.
“I’m not like the rest of the school because I have to plan a lecture lesson and a skills practice lesson,” Carolyn says. “For me, a 90 minute lesson takes at least two and a half days to plan, easy.”
With a classroom lecture and hands-on lab time for every lesson, Carolyn did twice the work of most other teachers at Coconut Creek.
Not to mention that Carolyn is helping students prepare for health science certifications like CMAA and EKG. Add in the certification preparation to her lesson planning and it’s amazing to think about how much time she spent on prep work.
But that all changed once Carolyn started using HealthCenter21.
With this one resource, Carolyn cut down the time she spent planning lessons every day — especially in the summer.
How Carolyn Saves Time with HealthCenter21
When Carolyn began using HealthCenter21, she quickly realized how much time it would save her.
She was happy to find that HealthCenter21 includes ready-to-use lesson plans that go along with the student lessons. It didn’t take long for her to find the teacher presentations, student worksheets, skills checklists, and other student activities for reinforcement and enrichment.
She can easily fill both the lecture and lab portions of her lessons with all of these resources. Carolyn also uses HealthCenter21 to help prepare students for the CMAA certification.
Now, Carolyn no longer has to plan down to the last second and spend weeks of her time off slaving away over every detail of a lesson.
Instead, she can relax knowing everything she needs is ready to use in HealthCenter21.
“I don’t have to reinvent the wheel with lesson plans and activities,” Carolyn says. “With HealthCenter21, everything is already there.”
Carolyn spends less time on grading now too, because HealthCenter21 automatically grades student work. Carolyn also takes advantage of pre-tests and repeatable quizzes to see how students have improved over the course of the year.
Real time grading empowers Carolyn to give students feedback instantly, and Carolyn can easily see where each student is struggling with a quick glance at the gradebook.
HealthCenter21 Bonus: Spending More One-on-One Time with Students
In addition to saving time in planning, HealthCenter21 also helped Carolyn spend more classroom time focusing on individual students.
Because HealthCenter21 is a digital curriculum, students can work through lessons on their own as Carolyn facilitates, observes, and helps students who need it.
“Now I have more time to monitor and circulate throughout the classroom to ensure students don’t get left behind,” Carolyn says. “I can stop to help a student and then start moving around the class again.”
Before using HealthCenter21, a student’s question would bring the entire class to a halt and Carolyn would risk going off the plan for the day.
Now, Carolyn can answer questions as they come up without interrupting the flow of the entire class.
“With HealthCenter21 I have much more time to give feedback to the students during class,” Carolyn says. “I think it’s helped me be a superhero. With HealthCenter21 I’m doing a better job. I’m able to be there for the students more.”
Try the HealthCenter21 Pilot Yourself
With one simple solution, Carolyn saves time in planning and preparing while helping the students who need it most.
