Instructional Planning and Delivery
What this domain tests
Turning assessment data into measurable IEP goals, delivering specially designed instruction, and choosing accommodations that keep students in grade-level content.
Planning rules
- The PLAAFP states present levels with data and is the anchor for every goal, service, and accommodation.
- Annual goals are measurable: condition, behavior, criterion, timeframe, and a stated method of progress monitoring. Activities like will receive counseling 30 minutes weekly are services, not goals.
- Accommodations change how a student accesses content (extended time, chunked directions, graphic organizers, preferential seating, breaks). Modifications change what is taught or the performance standard. Students with ED are generally held to grade-level standards.
Delivery
- Explicit instruction: model, guided practice with high rates of opportunities to respond, independent practice, corrective feedback.
- Universal Design for Learning: multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression.
- Task analysis, prompting hierarchies, and systematic fading for multi-step routines.
- Self-regulation instruction: goal setting, self-monitoring checklists, self-instruction, and Self-Regulated Strategy Development for writing and problem solving.
- Co-teaching models: one teach/one observe, station, parallel, alternative, team, one teach/one assist. Choose by lesson purpose, not teacher comfort.
Worked example
PLAAFP: during 20-minute independent writing, Marco writes one sentence and puts his head down on four of five days. Goal: Given a graphic organizer and a self-monitoring checklist, Marco will write a five-sentence paragraph with topic and concluding sentences in three consecutive sessions. Measurement: daily permanent product scored with a six-point rubric. SDI: SRSD with modeled planning and guided practice. Accommodation: chunked assignment into three steps, not shortened content. Baseline, goal, method, and support each map to a documented need.
Traps that cost marks
- Writing goals about services or feelings rather than observable performance.
- Labeling a modification as an accommodation, which lowers expectations without team agreement.
- Providing supports in one setting only, with no plan for generalization.