Start for $0.99

20 prompts for teachers that start from the learning goal

Generic lesson plans happen when the model knows the topic but not your students or what they need to walk out able to do. These prompts start from the objective and your class, and leave the grading and the judgment calls with you.

Swap anything in [brackets] for your objective, class or student work.

01. Plan a lesson backwards from what students should be able to do

Before you pick activities or open last year's slides.

I teach [subject] to [grade or level]. The lesson is [length] minutes.

By the end, students should be able to: [the learning objective, as something they can do]
What they already know: [prior lessons or skills]

Plan it backwards:
1. The evidence: what students produce or answer by the end that shows they met the objective.
2. The steps they need to get there, in order.
3. The lesson as a timed table: minutes, what I do, what students do, how I check understanding at that point.

Cut anything that does not lead to the evidence in step 1. Then list the assumptions you made about my students so I can correct them.

02. Differentiate one task for three levels without three lesson plans

A mixed class and one task that only fits the middle.

Here is a task I am giving my [grade or level] class:

[paste the task]

The objective all students should meet: [objective]

Rewrite it as three versions of the same task, so the whole class can still discuss it together afterwards:
1. With support: scaffolds, sentence starters or a worked example.
2. The core version.
3. With stretch: the same content, a harder thinking step, not just more of it.

Keep the objective identical across all three. Then tell me how to let students choose or move between levels without it feeling like a label.

03. Build a rubric with a descriptor for every level

An assignment where "good" means something different to every student.

Build a rubric for this assignment:

[paste the assignment and the objective it assesses]

Criteria: [list them, or ask me to confirm yours first]
Levels: [for example 4 levels, or your school's scale]

For each criterion and level, write a descriptor that says what the work does, in words a [grade or level] student understands. Each level must differ from the one next to it in one clear way, not by swapping "some" for "most".

Then flag any criterion that overlaps with another or that I could not judge from the work alone.

Unlock the other 17 prompts for free

Sign up for the Whizi newsletter to read the rest of this pack.

  1. Write quiz questions whose wrong answers reveal misconceptions
  2. Write exit tickets that tell you who to reteach tomorrow
  3. Draft essay feedback in your voice while you stay the grader
  4. Email a parent about a concern without putting them on the defensive
  5. Explain one concept three ways for the students still stuck
  6. Plan a discussion with questions that build on each other
  7. Adapt a reading to a lower reading level and keep the content
  8. List accommodation ideas to bring to the IEP team
  9. Map a unit from the final assessment back to day one
  10. Design a classroom activity that fits in under 10 minutes
  11. Write a substitute plan someone can run cold
  12. Work out why a lesson went badly and what to change
  13. Redesign an assignment so students have to show their own thinking
  14. Write practice problems that get harder in planned steps
  15. Write instructions students can follow without asking you
  16. Turn a standard into success criteria students can check themselves against
  17. Have a second model critique the first one's lesson plan