Writing an Objective This template may help if you need a place to start.

Lesson Design Video, hilarious, fun to listen to and great ideas.

Talk Less So Students Do More
Practical tips for student engagement to help you incorporate it into your lesson plan.

Teaching without the Text “The less I use the book, the more they learn.”

Fantastic articles by Jennifer Gonzalez (always practical!)

• Is your Lesson a Grecian Urn?

• 3 Tips to Make Any Lesson Culturally Responsive

• The 4 Laws of Learning

• Build it Together: Co-Constructing Success Criteria with Students

The Academic Word Finder
"Find the high-value, tier two vocabulary in any text." In other words, what vocab should you focus in on? This tool helps - any subject.

The Learning Scientists
Plan your lessons using the latest in Brain Science, lots of resources here. This is geared towards older students (how can they best study), but the strategies are absolutely applicable & important to all grade levels and will help you plan your day, or your unit, so that students learn and retain information.

What are the Best Things you can do to Maximize the Potential of your Lesson Being Successful? (A .pdf- this is the ideal, try to incorporate these things little by little!!)

Avoid Lesson Disasters by Conducting a Pre-Mortem

More Thinking, More Hands, Best Practices for Wait Time

Jellymetrics Readability Index
Paste in text to find out the grade level and Flesch-Kincaid scores. (Can my students read this selection ok?)

4 Keys to Helping Students Annotate Text

The Lesson Introduction
Ideas for "provocation" activities that get students thinking and questioning.

Teacher Toolkit Videos with lesson opening ideas
Various grade levels

The Eight Minutes That Matter Most
Beginnings and Endings for upper grade students

The Concept Attainment Strategy
From Jennifer Gonzalez, this strategy works for complicated topics, or those that don't have a simple definition. "...this strategy results in deep understanding is because it works with the way human beings instinctively learn. As we experience the world, we naturally organize things into categories based on common attributes." This strategy is an intro and moves into your checking for understanding as well.

8 Tips to Power Up your Classroom Presentations
If you plan to start your lesson with a PowerPoint or other slide show, read this. Best practice is to think more visual than text...use keywords, but no long sentences!!

Two by Jennifer Gonzalez:

• Instruction and Assessment Strategy Videos

• To Boost Learning, Just Add Movement

Teacher Toolkit Ideas Videos of different strategies

3 Ways to Ask Questions that Engage the Whole Class
Probably best for grades 3 and up.

Tips and Tools for Teaching Note Taking Skills

The Science of Drawing and Memory
Students recall twice as much if they draw as they are taking notes. "...researchers compared two methods of note-taking—writing words by hand versus drawing concepts—and found drawing to be 'an effective and reliable encoding strategy, far superior to writing.' ”

Teach Like a Champion Resources
Many resources here, one good example is Tips for Better Formative Writing Prompts

When Reading Gets Harder For 4th and up

On the Spot Scaffolding for Students

Teacher Toolkit Independent Practice
Video examples of types of independent practice.

Busysheets vs. Powersheets
"From now on, every time you’re about to use a worksheet, ask yourself if it’s contributing to student learning or if it’s actually just keeping them busy."

Often, you plan, but don't always finish in one shot. That's ok. Plan your closing, just keep in mind..."if I only get this far, how will I close it so that we can easily pick it up at another time w/maximum retention!

5 Ways to Close a Lesson

Guidance for Designing and Analyzing Exit Tickets

Teacher Toolkit Closing Activities
Video examples of different ways to close a lesson.

Don't forget to infuse diversity! Check out
8 tips for choosing “good” picture books featuring Black and Indigenous people and People of Color (.pdf) and Diverse Book Finder as a place to start.

PBS LearningMedia Tools
There’s a lesson builder, storyboard (which can serve as an assignment center like a hyperdoc), quiz builder and puzzle builder. You can assign these to your class.

The Best Places Places to Find Free (and Good) Lesson Plans on the Internet
A collection put together by Larry Ferlazzo.

Teachers Give Teachers
Free hyperdoc units. Ideal: a place for students to explore and learn about a topic, typically not linear, students choose what to do first, second, third. Can be done in groups, pairs or individually (depending on your access to technology). Here's an example created by one of the originators of the hyperdoc for a unit on trees (3rd grade)

Literacy Design Collaborative
LDC "teaching tasks" are the meaningful reading and writing assignments that teachers “teach” and students “do” to demonstrate they have learned college and career skills. Free lesson plans and resources

Scholastic Lessons and Ideas

The NY Times Learning Network Lesson plans linked to current events for upper elementary to high school students

Brainpop Educators (subscription service)