Instructional Planning and Delivery
Instructional Planning and Delivery
This domain tests how to design and deliver standards-aligned lessons for grades 5–12: clear objectives, backward design, sequencing, scaffolds, active learning, and responsive differentiation. The exam favors purposeful planning over activity collections.
Core concepts
- Backward design: identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, then plan learning experiences.
- Objectives: use observable verbs and align to content standards; 'students will analyze' beats 'students will understand.'
- Scaffolding and release: model, guide practice, then independent application; chunk complex texts and provide sentence frames, graphic organizers, and worked examples.
- Questioning: plan text-dependent and higher-order questions; use wait time and cold-call with support; avoid only recall.
- UDL: offer multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression.
Worked example
A 9th-grade civics team wants students to evaluate a local policy. The objective is: 'Students will evaluate two arguments about a city ordinance using evidence from provided sources.' The teacher first models an annotation, then leads a whole-class claim-evidence-reasoning paragraph, then has pairs analyze a second source before independent writing. Reasoning: the objective names the cognitive task, the sequence moves from modeled to independent work, and the scaffolds preserve rigor instead of simplifying the standard.
Traps
Do not write 'understand' objectives; do not let activities crowd out standards; do not scaffold by lowering cognitive demand; and do not plan differentiation only as extra worksheets.