Elements of an Effective Lesson

Questions to Focus Your Lesson Planning

Statement of Objective:  How will essential learner outcomes for the lesson be stated and communicated to students?

• What do I want students to know and be able to do as a result of the lesson?
• How will I share the lesson objective(s) with my students?
• What is the primary instructional focus of my lesson?
• Mastery of essential declarative and procedural knowledge?
• Extension of refinement of essential knowledge?
• Meaningful use of knowledge?
• Demonstration of productive habits of mind?

Focusing Student Attention/Warm-up: How will I establish an anticipatory set to focus students’ learning and to ensure on-task behavior by all students?
What will I do to:

• help students develop positive attitudes and perceptions about the learning climate and the learning task?
• focus students’ attention and prepare them to think critically through the use of a brief task?
• give students meaningful opportunities for practice of a key skill (i.e., procedural knowledge) or application of essential declarative knowledge?
• ensure my students are able to predict the outcomes for the lesson or make connections to a previous lesson or reinforce a skill or concept?

INTRODUCTORY AND DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES (Teacher-Directed Activities): 
How will I organize the lesson to ensure student mastery of essential learner outcomes?
How will I integrate assessment of student progress into my instruction?

Declarative Knowledge: 
What are the general topics and specifics of the lesson?
What are the essential facts, concepts, generalizations, and principles that I wish to emphasize in the lesson?
How will I:

• help students construct meaning, organize information, and store it in long-term memory?
• ensure that my students experience the information presented in the lesson?
• help students to understand the value and relevance of the content and activities?
• introduce, emphasize, and/or reinforce appropriate mental habits?

Procedural Knowledge: 
What skills, processes, competencies, and procedures do students really need to master in this lesson?
How will I:

• model the skills and processes in the lesson?
• help students comprehend and use the skill or competency?
• help students shape and internalize the skills and processes in the lesson?
• introduce, emphasize, and/or reinforce mental habits?
• differentiate to meet the needs of all students, including IEP goals/objectives and 504 plans?

GUIDED PRACTICE ACTIVITIES (Teacher-Monitored Activities): 
How will I help students extend and refine the declarative and procedural knowledge they are acquiring?

• What information will I expect students to extend and refine?
• What activities will I provide to help students extend and refine their knowledge? To what extent will I use student-centered activities? To what extent will I use cooperative learning structures?
• Which extending and refining thinking processes are most appropriate for this particular lesson – comparison, classification, induction, deduction, error analysis of perspectives, abstraction, and/or constructing support?
• How will I differentiate to meet the needs of all students, including IEP goals/objectives and 504 plans?

INDEPENDENT ACTIVITIES/MEANINGFUL-USE TASKS (Students Alone or in Cooperative Learning Groups): 
To what extent does this lesson contribute to students’ ability to respond successfully to long-term, performance-based, meaningful-use tasks?

• What independent activities and tasks are to be a part of this lesson?
• How do these activities and tasks reinforce students’ mastery of essential learning outcomes?
• To what extent, if any, do these activities and tasks contribute to students’ individual or collective response to an ongoing meaningful-use task that involves decision-making, problem solving, investigations, experimental inquiry, and/or invention?
• How will I differentiate to meet the needs of all students, including IEP goals/objectives and 504 plans?
• How will I differentiate to meet the needs of all students, including IEP goals/objectives and 504 plans?

ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES: 
Throughout the lesson, how will I monitor student progress?

• What strategies will I use to monitor the extent of students’ mastery of identified learner outcomes?
• What formative assessment strategies will I use to ensure that student progress is monitored from the beginning to the end of the lesson?
• What summative assessment strategy or strategies will I use to ensure that all students have mastered the essential learner outcomes?
• How will I integrate metacognitive strategies into my assessment process so that students can express and monitor their own comprehension and assess themselves as learners?
• How will I balance my assessment strategies to include both oral and written communication skills?
• How will I collect evidence to monitor student progress?
• How will I differentiate to meet the needs of all students, including IEP goals/objectives and 504 plans?

CLOSURE ACTIVITY (Teacher-Guided): 
What activity will foster a sense of completion among student participants?
Will it be a part of the assessment process, or will it function as a stand-along activity?

• How did we do?
• How far will we go tomorrow? For our next lesson, think about …
• In your opinion, what are the most significant or interesting parts of the lesson?

How does the lesson relate to you and the world you inhabit?