Best Practices Guide

A strong lesson plan isn't about length or format — it's about intentional design. Here are the five pillars:

• Clear, measurable objectives. Students will be able to… not just “understand” or “learn about.” Use verbs from Bloom's Taxonomy: analyze, compare, construct, evaluate.
• Alignment. Your objective, instruction, and assessment should all target the same skill. If you teach analysis, don't test recall.
• Planned student engagement. If the longest stretch of your lesson is the teacher talking, redesign it. Students learn by doing, not by listening.
• Built-in checks for understanding. Don't wait until the exit ticket to find out students are lost. Check every 10-15 minutes.
• Intentional differentiation. Not just “advanced students do more.” Plan for how you'll support struggling learners and challenge those who are ready for more — proactively.

The most effective lesson planning method — Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe) — works backwards:

1. What should students know and be able to do? Start with the standard and write a measurable objective.
2. How will you know they learned it? Design your assessment before your instruction. If you can't measure it, you can't teach it intentionally.
3. What instruction will get them there? Now plan the activities, practice, and scaffolding that build toward the assessment.

If you're a Texas teacher, your lesson plan is the foundation of your T-TESS evaluation. Here's how the domains connect:

• Domain 1 (Planning): Alignment to standards, use of data to inform planning, intentional design for all learners. Your written plan is the artifact.
• Domain 2 (Instruction): What happens when you execute the plan — engagement strategies, questioning, differentiation in action, monitoring and adjusting.
• What appraisers look for: Standards alignment, rigor at the right DOK level, proactive differentiation, formative assessment embedded throughout, and evidence that you planned for student thinking — not just teacher delivery.

1. Weak or missing closure. The teacher summarizes instead of having students demonstrate. Your exit ticket should be students proving they met the objective — not you restating the lesson.
2. Assessment doesn't match the objective. You teach analysis but test recall. If your objective uses a high-level Bloom's verb, your assessment needs to match.
3. Differentiation only at the extremes. Advanced students get enrichment, struggling students get modified work — but the middle 60% gets nothing. Plan for all three tiers.
4. Too much teacher talk. If students are passive for the first 20 minutes, engagement drops and learning suffers. Break instruction into 10-minute chunks with active processing between.
5. No formative check before independent practice. Releasing students to work independently without checking understanding means half the class may practice mistakes. Check first.