Planning Tool
These are metacognitive/self-reflective questions that teachers can pose to themselves to help them consider specific strategies for enacting the MDP in an upcoming lesson. These questions are meant to guide teachers to think as concretely and specifically as possible about what they will say/do to support this MDP.
- What opportunities does this lesson provide for students to engage in challenging reasoning, making sense of phenomena, designing solutions, revising their thinking, and/or reflecting on their understanding?
- How will I frame the purpose of this lesson/specific activities to students? What will I say throughout this lesson to incentivize student effort/strategy use and deeper learning versus speed, points, or compliance?
- How am I encouraging participation and personal responsibility for learning from all students in this lesson? How will I collect evidence of multiple students’ thinking during this lesson, and ensure that I don’t just stop when I hear the right answer?
- How can I ensure that my evaluation of students assesses deeper understanding rather than surface memorization and aligns with the purpose of the lesson?
- In what ways might students be inclined to compare themselves to others in this lesson (positively or negatively)? How can I try to pre-empt those comparisons and/or respond to them in the moment?
- What steps have I taken to ensure that students will feel comfortable making mistakes, admitting that they don’t know something, or taking intellectual risks in this lesson? How will I draw on established classroom norms and routines related to mistakes, and what, if any, additional structures or reminders/reinforcements might be required for this particular lesson?
