Instructional Process
The Instructional Process domain covers planning, delivery, engagement, and classroom management. This is the largest and most scenario-heavy area: expect questions that show a lesson in progress and ask what the teacher should do next, or which adjustment best preserves the objective.
Planning and alignment
Use backward design: identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, then plan learning experiences. Objectives should be measurable and matched to Ohio Learning Standards, with activities and assessments aligned to the same verb level. Bloom's taxonomy helps you check whether the task actually demands the thinking the standard names.
Delivery
Gradual release (modeled, guided, independent) supports new skills; inquiry and cooperative structures support application. Structured group work requires positive interdependence and individual accountability. Increase wait time to three to five seconds and use higher-order questioning rather than volunteer-only recitation. UDL calls for multiple means of representation, action/expression, and engagement. Differentiation adjusts content, process, or product by readiness, interest, or profile; flexible grouping beats fixed ability groups.
Management
Proactive management-routines, clear expectations, withitness, proximity, smooth transitions-prevents most disruption. Aim for high opportunity-to-respond rates and roughly 80–90% success on independent practice.
Worked example
A seventh-grade ecosystems lesson lists "students will understand food webs." The fix: rewrite as "students will construct a food web and predict the effect of removing one organism," then add a quick formative check and tiered scaffolds. The original objective names no observable performance, so neither instruction nor assessment can be aligned to it.
Traps
Hands-on activity with no aligned objective; group work with no individual accountability; reteaching the whole class when only a subgroup missed the concept; calling only on raised hands; confusing differentiation with giving less work.