Joe Ames

5 April 2018
Reflection on InTASC 7: Planning for Instruction

Careful planning is likely the most important part of a teacher’s preparation, and it needs

to be thorough, collaborative, and based on evidence and reflection. InTASC 7, planning for

instruction, stresses the need for a teacher to consider all aspects of a learning experience before

delivering it to their students. Lessons need to be aligned to curricular and content standards, to

contain pre-planned methods of differentiation, and sequenced in a logical way. Otherwise,

students will be completing activities that are not relevant, unsupported in their learning, and

unprepared for the content. An English teacher would need to instruct a class on character and

setting before introducing plot structure because the first part of a plot is exposition, where

character and setting are introduced. Without this prior knowledge in mind, a teacher would be

setting their students up for confusion and stress, which would likely result in an ineffective

lesson. A well planned lesson in an ELA classroom would be tied to curricular standard. A grade

ten lesson on tone would be aligned with CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.10.4, which requires

students to be able to identify the impact of word choice on tone. Therefore, an activity asking

students to first identify tone in a short poem and then identify the words that created the tone

would be aligned with the standard. This lesson would also need to differentiate instruction to

ensure that all learners can succeed. In this case, a list of tone words could be provided for ELLs,

and including pictures to accompany the different tones could help those students and other who

are visual learners. For struggling readers, a teacher could be sure to read the poem aloud twice

before transitioning students to their seatwork. This standard ensures that a teacher is prepared to

deliver effective instruction. Even with a strong plan, one can rarely account for everything that
could happen in the classroom; without a plan at all, teachers will never successfully deliver

content.