Lesson Plan Template (Inquiryfor Math, Sci, SS,

Integrated Literacy)
HEADING:
Students Name: ______________________________________ Date:
__________________________
Subject Area(s): _______________________________________ Grade Level:
_____________________
Concept/Topic: _______________________________________ Time:
__________________________
DESIRED RESULTS:
Big ideas/Key concepts:
Summarize the big idea(s) (overarching concepts that transcend all grades) and key
concept(s) your lesson is designed to address. What do you want students to
understand about the topic? Include the specific content information (i.e., specific
statements, including important definitions and ideas) you need to know about this
concept in order to teach your lesson. Please use paragraph format. (National
Standards and Common Core Standards should provide you the background
information to complete this section.)
Objectives:
What do you want the students to be able to do at the end of the lesson? Continue
to refer to these objectives during the lesson. (These objectives should describe
what students will do in the lesson, and what they will be learning through that
activity and should clearly link what students already know, as well as to the
understandings and standards described in sections above.)
Curriculum Standards:
Situate your lesson within Pennsylvanias Standards Aligned System
(www.pdesas.org). List the education standard(s) that will be addressed. (These
standards should be closely related to the big idea(s) and objectives described
above.)
CONTEXT:
Who are the students? What grade level? Are there any specific characteristics of
the class or of individual students that are important to consider? What current
knowledge, understanding, strategies, experiences do students bring that this
lesson will build upon? What strengths do the students bring with them upon which
you can build? What areas of growth can this lesson help to strengthen?
Where does this lesson fit into the unit? How does this lesson connect to what
came before and what comes after? What did students learn in previous work that
provides the underpinnings for this lesson and unit? Where does the unit fit into the
larger curriculum for the grade level/course?
EVIDENCE:
What data will you collect to assess the extent to which the desired outcomes were
achieved? Explicitly state how the collected data are linked to the big

ideas/concepts and objectives identified above. You can consider the following
questions:
During and after the lesson, how you will determine if the students have
gained understanding about the big ideas/concepts?
How will you know if they are able to perform the skills taught in your lesson?
How will you hold the students individually accountable for their learning?
LEARNING PLAN:
Pre-requisites: As necessary, list any prior skills that students will need to use
during this lesson.
Materials and Technology:
List all the materials, equipment, resources needed for this lesson, including
technology. Include a separate list for teachers and students. If you have used
other sources to develop your lesson, please cite them here (use APA citation style).
Rationale:
What about prior sessions with the students and your knowledge of students in
general prompted you to select the tasks and develop the ideas in this lesson plan
as you did? Be specific. Consider what theory is driving your instructional decisions
as well as how you plan to incorporate the Temple teaching standards into your
lesson.
Differentiation: Be specific. Explain how your lesson will help ALL students,
including your special education and linguistically diverse students, develop the big
idea(s) and key concept(s).
Step-By-Step Procedures: (although these lesson phases are listed separately, we
expect that students will be engaged in and exploring the content throughout the
lesson; that they will be explaining their ideas and thinking throughout the lesson;
and that teachers will be evaluating students performances and learning
throughout the lesson)
1. Engage: How will you get the students interested in what you are going to
do and engage the students in preliminary thinking related to the coming
activity. Help the students understand the problem setting, the mathematical
context, and the challenge. This is the time to connect students interests,
previous experience, and understanding to the current problem. This is
where you may choose to make the objectives of the lesson explicitly clear
to students.1

1 In a problem-based lesson, it is possible that explicitly stating the

objectives up front will all but eliminate problem solving from the lesson. Therefore,
it is up to you to decide when/how to introduce the students to the specific learning
objectives you have established for the lesson.

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2.

Explore: How will students explore the problem or activity? Students may
be gathering data, sharing ideas, looking for patterns, making conjectures,
and developing strategies.
a. Include in your lesson plan explicit questions to be posed to students?
These questions should probe students strategies and understandings,
foster further understanding, encourage student discourse, provoke
further discussion, and/or challenge misconceptions (think High
Press).
b. Make sure to include anticipated student responses (especially
incorrect ones) and how you will respond to support the students
thinking or adjust your lesson based on student needs.

3. Explain: During this part of the lesson, students discuss their solutions as
well as the strategies they used to approach the problem. Have individuals
or pairs share their learning. The role of the teacher is to highlight important
ideas and to explicitly add any key ideas that were omitted by the students.
a. Use the lessons big ideas and key concepts to identify what
you want to highlight during this part of the lesson.
b. Develop questions to help students develop or consolidate their
learning in relation to these big ideas and key concepts.
4. Elaborate: Are there any extensions or applications that will help you
determine if the students have met the objectives of the lesson? The focus
here is on students generalizing their understanding beyond the problems
already posed and discussed.
5. Evaluate: The purpose of evaluation is for both the students and you to
gauge the extent to which students achieve the lesson objectives and the
extent to which the lessons desired outcomes were achieved. This section
of the lesson plan should include the following: (1) A plan for collecting data
from students (Assessments can be formal, such as a piece of written work,
or informal, such as a closing activity in which students respond verbally to a
series of questions); and (2) An explanation as to how you will assess the
extent to which students have met the learning goals (e.g., if students do x,
then I will know that y.) Assessment should be ongoing and inform the
teacher of points where an adjustment to the lesson needs to be made; and
(3, optional) An explanation of how students will evaluate their own learning,
and also, their peers learning.
ATTACHMENTS:

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Attach any supplemental materials (e.g., worksheets, graphic organizers,

etc.)
TEMPLE TEACHING STANDARDS (TTS):

Review your lesson plan to make sure you have addressed the six
TTS (Deep Content Understanding, Coherence & Continuity, Real
World Connections, Active Learning, Critical & Creative Thinking,
Teacher Reflective Thinking).
Revise, if necessary, to ensure all standards are included.
Be prepared to explain how your lesson plan addresses the TTS.

REFLECTION (AFTER THE LESSON):

Analyze the evidence you collected and reflect on how the lesson went:

What did the students learn? How do you know?

What went well? What makes you think so?
What would you change if you were to teach the lesson again? Why?
Explain how the evidence that you collected is also useful in thinking
about something more than the success of this particular lesson. For
example, consider how your data support or conflict with theory and
research that youve read.

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