Table of Contents

Introduction and Letter From Tarun Cherukuri, 2009 Fellow.. 2

A Vision of Excellence. 4
Chapter One: Start With Standards. 6
Chapter Two: Assessing Student Progress. 8
Chapter Three: Long-Term Planning.. 16
Chapter Four: Unit Planning. 19
Chapter Five: The Five Step Lesson Plan. 25
Chapter Six: Strategies for Classroom. 31
Conclusion.. 39

Page 1 of 39

Introduction and Letter From Tarun Cherukuri, 2009 Fellow

In the Teaching as Leadership text, you were introduced to the six principles of teaching used by the
most successful teachers setting big goals; investing students and their influencers; planning
purposefully; executing effectively; working relentlessly; and continuously improving effectiveness.
While each of these principles is integral to your success in the classroom, teachers often find that the
most pivotal principle is planning purposefully. Effective teachers are most often thoughtful planners
who critically use data to determine the path toward success for their students.
Much of what happens in a classroom depends on the preparation a teacher does before the class. In
this text, we will take you through the steps followed by effective teachers when planning for their
class in order to maximize their student achievement. This text will provide an overview of the
planning processes you will use in your classroom. At Institute, your training sessions will complement
this text and you will be exposed to specific strategies that you can use in your classroom.
The system of planning and preparation used by Teach For India is based on the habits of highly
successful teachers. At Teach for India, we define successful teachers as those who demonstrate
significant gains in student achievement. In short, great teaching is determined by students learning.
These two ideas are inseparable, and we base our methods on the techniques used by teachers who
consistently move their kids forward to achieve significant gains.
We cannot overemphasize the importance of planning because we recognize the vital role it plays in
your students success. This is perhaps best exemplified in the words of Tarun Cherukuri, Grade 3 Class
Teacher, National Childrens Academy, Pune.
"Effective classrooms are the ones which maximize learning in the shortest time possible in the most
engaging and captivating manner.
If this were the defining statement for any classroom vision, then the foundation needs to be set by
strong planning at all levels. Over this past year, I have always gone in to my class with the mindset
that every minute wasted because of my lack of plans is a great disservice to my kids. At Teach For
India, we use a variety of planning tools and I believe that each of these tools is critical to my students
success.

Long term plans and Unit plans give you the vision for the year and give you the much
needed clarity to focus on daily planning needs. A weak long term plan or Unit Plan is like
working in a fire station. You are fighting a fire every session no matter how spontaneous
you are.
Lesson Plans are objective driven and ensure that all kids readiness levels, learning styles
and special intelligences are taken care of. When planning, think of your lowest level kids
and do this planning for them - I have personally seen a mastery jump of 20-30% with
differentiated lesson plans.
Behavior and Procedural Plans make sure that you get maximum time for instruction. Dont
leave margins for errors in the first few weeks as these mistakes will hurt you badly through
the year. Make your plans for behavior management and your execution absolutely air tight.
Otherwise, kids will take advantage of you and it will lead to a great loss of time and energy.
Persist with a strategy for at least a week to confirm if it works or doesnt. Kids need
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reinforcement at least 8 times for procedures and rules to be ingrained. A good long term
plan, unit plan and lesson plans incidentally will also help you with behavior management.
Execution Plans ensure that every kid is learning through checks for understanding and
practices.
Stakeholder Plans increase your locus of control beyond the domain of the classroom.
Remember that kids are with you for only 25% of the time. What they do for the remaining
75% does have a bearing on your classroom.

Overall, the needs and wants of the classrooms and schools we work in are infinite. The only limitation
is your ability as a teacher to cater to them. Approaching an infinite problem without a strong plan is
asking for definite trouble in terms of effectiveness in the classroom. As the adage goes, well begun is
half done! A good beginning always happens with an excellent plan!

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A Vision of Excellence
In many Indian schools, students are often seen copying answers from the board and then memorizing
these answers for the sole purpose of performing well on examinations. This method of teaching and
learning is called rote learning and is increasingly practiced in a majority of schools in India. Rote
learning is a technique which avoids understanding of a subject and instead focuses on memory and
learning by repetition. When students learn by rote, they fail to gain a deep understanding of the
subject material and dont learn the skills needed to comprehend material on their own. To truly equip
our students with the skills needed to succeed in school and beyond as well as to enable them to reach
their full potential, we need to develop their understanding and skills.
A cursory look through the Maharashtra state curriculum and text books (hereafter referred to as the
SSC curriculum) will indicate that while skill development is a focus, it is not an integral part of the
curriculum. In our attempt to give all children an excellent education, we need to integrate skill
development into the SSC curriculum and ensure that all Fellows focus on teaching with
understanding.
To guide our Fellows through this process of teaching with understanding, Teach For India uses a set of
learning standards developed by Educational Initiatives, an educational testing service based in
Ahmedabad. The EI standards are aligned to national and
international learning levels and include the key skills
Since the EI standards are put
students need to master at different grade levels. While EI together in a systematic way and
has standards for English, Maths, Science and Social Studies, are at par with international
for the purposes of training, this text will focus on only on standards, they cover all major and
the English and Maths EI standards. At Institute, you will be
important skills and knowledge that
given the entire set of EI standards that you will need to a grade level student should master.
teach your particular grade level.
We as TFI teachers can reduce the
achievement gap only if we teach
Many of you will face constraints in your school while and test our kids against these
attempting to integrate and teach these EI standards with
benchmarks and believe that they
the SSC curriculum. Most schools follow a 6-week pattern of are capable of achieving them.
SSC examinations and school management will ask you to
Subhashini Rajsekaran, Teach for
focus on the SSC content over the EI standards. However, it
is important for you to understand the need for these India Fellow, 2009 Cohort.
learning standards and to work with school management to ensure that you are teaching the skills and
knowledge prescribed by the EI standards through the SSC content. For example, you would use a story
in the SSC English text book, but would teach specific comprehension skills through that story. The
English and Maths Progression Plans (introduced at Institute) will help you work with the EI and SSC
standards and provide strategies to effectively combine the two.
As an incoming Fellow, it is critical for you to internalize these standards and convince your school
management that these standards will ensure additional success for your students. While it is a
challenge to integrate these standards into the SSC curriculum and to plan for and teach them
effectively, we have found that this is the only way to effectively bridge the learning gap.

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Throughout this text we will reference how to the blend the SSC curriculum and the EI standards
together. Specifically, we will talk about how you can teach the content in the SSC textbooks in a more
meaningful way to ensure skill development.
Regardless of whether you are teaching the EI standards or the SSC curriculum, you will still need to
plan effectively in order to ensure your students learning improves within the academic year. As you
proceed through the text, please keep in mind the three questions that are essential in order to make
significant gains in your classrooms:
(1) What should my students know, understand, or be able to do?
(2) How will my students demonstrate their mastery?
(3) How will I instruct my students so they can reach that level of mastery?

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Chapter 1: Start with Standards

The first question teachers need to consider before they begin teaching is, what do my students need
to learn by the end of the day, month and year? In order to plan for the year, you will need to know
what EI standards you will need to teach by the end of the year, as well as the SSC content determined
by the school. Based on this information, you can then develop a year-long plan for your students that
will include EI standards and SSC curriculum. Based on this year-long plan, you will then determine
what your students will learn every month, week and day. In later chapters we will talk about how you
develop a yearly plan, as well as monthly and daily plans, for your students.
However, to begin with, we will concentrate on understanding the EI standards and how they assist
you in teaching your students. By design, the EI standards are merely guidelines of the skills you need
to sequentially teach your students in order to progress on to higher order skills. There is no specific
syllabus associated with the EI standards and so these standards can be integrated into a range of state
and national curricula. For example, a 2nd Grade EI maths standard will say:
Students are able to understand the meaning of multiplication (repeated addition) and
division (equal sharing, grouping) and their effect using concrete objects, pictures. They
understand inverse relation between multiplication and division using concrete objects.
In order for your students to be able to master the skills needed to demonstrate their ability to
multiply and divide, there is some prerequisite knowledge and skills your students will need to know
and do. Therefore, as a teacher, the first step toward teaching an EI standard is to break it into its
smaller component parts, known as learning objectives.
From standards to objectives:
In order to understand how to break a standard into learning objectives, let us look at the same maths
standard:
Students are able to understand the meaning of multiplication (repeated addition) and
division (equal sharing, grouping) and their effect using concrete objects, pictures. They
understand inverse relation between multiplication and division using concrete objects.
At the broadest level, this standard tells us that before students master the skill of multiplying and
dividing, they need to understand the concept of multiplication as repeated addition and division as
equal sharing. Students will begin to understand this skill by working with objects and pictures. While
this standard gives you an idea of what you need to teach, there is no clarity in how to teach this
particular standard. The first step in teaching this standard is to break it down into smaller, more
discrete learning objectives. By teaching these objectives, you develop the pre-requisite skills and
knowledge students need in order to master this standard. In this text, we refer to the process of
breaking down a standard into objectives as unpacking of standards. Usually, standards take a few days
to teach, while objectives can be taught in one or two sessions.
General
Standard

Unpacking

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Specific
Objective

The maths standard listed above can be unpacked into the following objectives:

Students will be able to (SWBAT) decompose multiplication problems into repeated addition
problems
SWBAT illustrate division problems through visual representations of equal sharing
SWBAT identify and perform the necessary operation (multiplication/division) in word problems
SWBAT show visual representations of multiplication
SWBAT use visual representations to show how multiplication and division are inverse
relationships (for ex: show that 3 x 4 = 12 and then 12 / 4 = 3)

Note that each objective represents a specific skill that students need to learn. Another way in which
standards often need to be unpacked is through building up in their difficulty level. This is very
common with EI English Standards. For example, look at this Grade 3 English standard:
Students will make predictions, draw simple inferences and conclusions about characters
(their nature, attitude, and actions). They will use contextual clues (pictures, examples, etc.)
and prior knowledge in the text to do so.
In your classroom, you will discover that students are far behind grade level, even to the extent of just
learning English alphabet sounds. With that in context, the English standard mentioned above requires
you to build up to the skill carefully, and identify the earlier skills that need to be taught to reach
proficiency on the standard. The following is an unpacking of the standard:

SWBAT identify actions in a story

SWBAT describe characters by referring back to their actions
SWBAT make an inference about a character based on prior events.
SWBAT make a reasonable prediction based on prior story events or character actions.
SWBAT use contextual clues (pictures, examples) and prior knowledge to make a prediction or
draw an inference.
SWBAT justify a prediction using a specific example(s) from the text.

SSC Curriculum
Apart from the EI standards, the SSC curriculum (developed by the State of Maharashtra) is the primary
teaching tool you will use in your classrooms. Unlike the EI standards, which offer you guidelines to
teach skills that students should demonstrate, the SSC text books are often specific topics that
students need to master (Maths) or stories and poems that students need to learn (English). These are
then tested through frequent unit tests and exams to ensure students mastery of the content. As we
mentioned earlier, since the EI standards are guidelines for skills, they can be taught through the SSC
content. The EI standards for Maths are closely aligned with the SSC curriculum; however, while the EI
standards for English can be taught through SSC curriculum, it is a challenge to align the two and teach
effectively.
As first-year teachers, we do accept that you will face challenges in working with these two sets of
standards. However, we cannot emphasize enough that in order to ensure our students are
competitive with their peers from wealthier backgrounds and better schools, it is imperative that you
teach the EI standards with the SSC curriculum. In the rest of the text, we will help you understand how
you will use these two curricula to plan for and teach your students.
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Chapter 2: Assessing Student Progress

In the previous chapter, we saw that effective teachers begin the planning process by defining what
their students need to know. Once you know the broad topics that your students will learn, you will
then need to determine how your students will demonstrate their learning. In other words you need to
ask yourself, what will my kids be able to produce (assessments), that will let me know that they have
mastered the learning standard? Simply put, once youve determined what you are supposed to
teach, you should determine what students will do to prove that they understand the material in the
required ways.
As a Fellow, there are three types of assessments you will use in your classroom
1. Diagnostic assessment
2. Formative assessments
3. Summative assessments
Diagnostic Assessments
Diagnostic assessments are given at the beginning of the year in order to determine the exact learning
levels of your students. Diagnostic assessments tell you exactly what each student in your class knows
and is able to demonstrate. This will give you a clear vision of the gaps in your students learning and
will allow you to determine the standards you need to teach in order to bring your students up to
grade level.
During Institute, you will be given the diagnostics you will use in your classrooms. These diagnostics
will include assessments for Maths, Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, Writing skills and
Listening and Speaking skills. You will also be given specific instructions on how to administer these
diagnostic exams in your classrooms.
In addition, throughout the school year, you are encouraged to give mini-diagnostics when necessary.
For example, if you are about to start teaching the math concept of measurement to your students, it
might be necessary for you to ensure that students all have the prior knowledge needed to master this
skill. You can design your own short assessment at the beginning of this unit in order to determine your
students knowledge and skill level.
Formative Assessments
Formative assessments are administered frequently, usually at the end of a single class or at the end of
the day. The purpose of these assessments is so you can determine exactly how many of your students
have mastered the content you have taught during the class / day. This will allow you to make changes
to your plan, in the event that you will need to re-teach the content because most of your students
have not mastered the content you taught.
Summative Assessments
Summative Assessments are end-of-year or end-of-month assessments. The purpose of administering
a summative assessment is to ensure retention of knowledge among your students.
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Creating an assessment:
When creating an assessment (diagnostic, formative or summative), you will need to use the process
we outlined early in the chapter. Step 1: What should your students know, understand, or be able to
do? Step 2: How will your students demonstrate their mastery?
Step 1: What should your students know, understand, or be able to do?
In order to determine what your students need to know, you will need to determine the SSC
curriculum and EI standards your students will learn within a given time frame. This process was
outlined in the previous chapter.
Step 2: How will students demonstrate their mastery?
The next part, and the focal point of this chapter, is to determine the methods you can use to assess
your students.
While creating assessment questions can feel like a huge task, the following considerations are
important when deciding on what types of questions you will ask your kids

Content of the unit based on the content taught, what questions would be best suited to measure
understanding of this content?
Efficiency what types of assessment will simplify the creation, administration, and grading of the
assessment?
Breadth of material how suited is the assessment to cover different quantities of material?
Depth of knowledge how much will your assessment reveal about student
understanding/misunderstandings?
Distorting factors what factors might distort scores and prevent the assessment from accurately
revealing student mastery (see question four below)?
Question types:
When designing an assessment it is important to understand the two main categories or types of
assessment questions: objective and non-objective. At the most basic level objective assessment
questions are items that are generally not open to interpretation. Objective questions can be multiple
choice, matching, true/false, fill in the blank or basic computation. On the other hand, non-objective
assessment questions are more open-ended and allow greater room for interpretation (short or long
answer questions and essays).
The chart below outlines the types of questions you can use, what skills your students can demonstrate
through these questions and examples of questions.

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Question
Multiple
choice
(objective)

Purposes
Discriminate between options,
comprehend concepts, make
simple judgments

Examples
Where are you most likely to find the Indian tiger? (a)
Gujarat, (b) Maharashtra, (c) Tamilnadu, (d) Himachal
Pradesh.

Matching,
sequencing
(objective)

Identifying relationships,
classifying items, charting
cause and effect

- Label the following items with an (E) for executive

branch, (L) for legislative or (J) for judicial.
- Put the following events in chronological order.

True-false,
yes-no
(objective)

Knowledge of generalizations,
relationships and examples;
predicting, evaluating

Under the right to freedom, you can say anything you

want True or False

Factual
short
answer,
fill-ins
(objective)

Recalling or classifying facts,

terms or concepts, solving
simple science and
mathematical problems

- Define democracy.
- Draw a diagram explaining the water cycle.

Higherorder short
answer
(nonobjective)

Summarizing, applying,
concluding, evaluating,
predicting, analyzing

- After reading the news story below, write a

summarizing headline.
- Given his previous actions, what is Emperor Akbar
likely to do next?

Organizing ideas, developing a

logical argument, comparing
concepts, communicating
thoughts or feelings,
demonstrating original ideas

- Read the above poem and describe the purpose of its

major metaphor.
- What would Gandhi say about freedom of religion if
he were still alive today?

Short or
long essay
(nonobjective)

Alignment
When choosing the question type to test student mastery, you also need to determine if the question
aligns with the objective taught. For example, if youve focused your instruction on learning goals
involving mathematical patterns, it would be unreasonable to have sections with algebraic equations.
This may seem like an obvious point, but it can be tricky to ensure that your test is exactly aligned to
all parts of your learning goals, and nothing else. The question should only assess what is expected of
your student in the particular learning/goal objective and all parts of the learning goal/objective need
to be assessed. Let us look at the example below:
Learning objective: Students will be able to use prepositions in a sentence
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This means that your assessment should test whether students can use the correct prepositions in
sentences. Any prior knowledge that students have before they can reach this objective (for example,
identifying prepositions in a sentence) cannot be tested in your assessment.
Aligned Question:
Fill in the blanks with the right prepositions (given below):
[bottom, near, in, during, behind, next to]
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

The sun is shining _____ the sky.

Our school is just ______ the bus stop.
The teachers chair is ________ the table.
The boatman got the scholar _______ the storm.
At the _______ of the ocean you get oil

Non Aligned Question:

Circle the prepositions that appear in the story below.
I placed a flower in my hair. A butterfly flew into it. I took the flower out of my hair, and put it under
my foot.
Example Assessment 2: SWBAT visually represent a division problem
Aligned Question:
Using the circles, show 20 5, and give the answer

Non Aligned Question:

Share 20 balls among 5 groups

Note the aligned question requires the student to be able to represent the division problem they must
therefore understand what the 20 and the 5 represent in the context of division. Asking them to give
the answer requires them to understand the connection between the visual description and the
answer. In the non aligned example, a student can just follow the instructions without them
knowing the connection to the corresponding division problem.

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True Mastery
Assessment items must show the true level of
understanding that a student has, meaning that the
results from the assessment must be an accurate
representation of how well the student has
understood the concept. Specifically, if a student
performs well on a question that should reflect a
high level of understanding and if a student
performs poorly on a question that should reflect a
poor level of understanding. If this criteria isnt
satisfied, the results of your assessment will not
provide you with the correct information.

It is important to have rigorous assessments

to test the true mastery of an objective. Do
not be scared to administer an
intelligent/difficult/rigorous assessment just
because you think that the kids will lose
marks. You will actually be surprised to see
how much the kids know. This will also give
you a better sense of planning for other
objectives- because you know exactly in
which area you need to push yourself to push
the kids up
Indira Aditi Rawat, Teach for India Fellow,
2009 Cohort.

The following are some basic criteria and examples:

1. Ensure that items dont give away answers.
Poor Question: All shapes have angles and sides. A rectangle has 4 _______ and 4 _______.
Good Question: How many sides does a rectangle have? ________.
2. Focus the item. Watch your wording and be explicit if youre looking for a specific answer.
Otherwise, your question could yield unintended answers or allow for a range of unwanted
responses.
Poor Question: The author of Shakuntala was _____________ (The student could put a man, etc.)
Good Question: What is the pen name of the author of Shakuntala? _________________
3. Test one idea at a time. Some teachers try to trick their students by placing more than one true
and false fact in the same question. Yet this strategy does not allow teachers to know what piece of
the question students are deeming true or false.
Poor Question: True or False: Fishing was the chief occupation of Madras, one of the first trading
posts of the British East India Company.
Good Question: True or False: Fishing was the chief occupation in Madras.
True or False: Madras was one of the East India Companys first trading posts.
4. In a multiple-choice question, ensure that the incorrect answer choices are at least plausible to
someone who lacks knowledge. Make sure that some of your incorrect answer choices are rigorous
distracters, plausible answers based on common student errors or misconceptions. Remember the
goal is for students to demonstrate their understanding of the material.
Poor Example: The country directly west of India is (a) Kabul, (b) Antarctica, (c) Pakistan, (d)
Singapore.
Good Example: The country directly west of India is (a) Afghanistan, (b) Pakistan, (c) Sri Lanka, (d)
Bangladesh.

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Crafting these quality distracters will greatly enhance the validity of your multiple choice questions.
They increase the likelihood that you will accurately learn whether students truly understand the
objective and did not simply guess or eliminate obviously incorrect choices.
5. Avoid posing questions in the negative. Negative questions greatly enhance the chances that a
student will misunderstand the question. Use short, exact and positive statements. If you must write
a question in the negative, that fact should be highlighted.
Poor Example: What mistakes should you not make if you dont want your reader to become
confused by your writing?
Good Example: What should you avoid doing to make your writing clear for your reader?
Beyond the specific criteria for each question, you want to make sure you give multiple questions per
objective to gain a more reliable sense of where your kids are.
What are the criteria for a high level response?
Once you have your questions created, be sure that you are clear on what a high quality response is.
For shorter questions/prompts, this involves taking the assessment yourself in addition to assigning
points and being clear on what components need to be there in order to demonstrate mastery. On
more open-ended prompts such as writing samples, rubrics are often used to evaluate a students
work. Rubrics outline the criteria for varying levels of success in order to accurately evaluate a childs
work.
Formative assessments are generally much more scaffolded than summative assessments.
Scaffolding is the technique of increasing the rigor of questions pertaining to a learning goal or
objective to determine the extent of a students knowledge. Therefore, instead of only having
information that tells you if a student is successful or not, you have information that lets you know the
extent of the students mastery.
For example, look at the following skill of subtraction being assessed through heavy scaffolding.
(a) 17 (b) 15 (c) 433 (d) 337 (e) 654 (f) 43 (g) 63
-12 - 13
-132
- 226
- 423
- 25
- 57
5
2
301
111
231
12
14

(h) 562
- 453
111

(i) 667
- 374
313

In this case, answers from a) to e) are correct, but the last 4 are incorrect. The information we get
through this is that the student is fine with subtraction without borrowing even up to large numbers.
However the student struggles on any type of subtraction problem with borrowing. The scaffolding
allows the Fellow to target these areas for this student.
Efficiency
When creating assessments it is important to consider the efficiency in administering and correting the
assessment. Design assessments that are quick and simple to grade and ensure that you only ask for
the required information to test mastery and nothing else.

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Administering Assessments
Collecting accurate data from students is essential and ensuring the data is a students own will allow
you to plan carefully for future instruction. In small and crowded classrooms students may find it easy
to copy each other, if this is allowed it will result in unreliable data. There are many things you can do
to ensure that the data you collect from assessments is accurate:
1. Clearly discuss the importance of students not looking at "When everyone writes the
someone elses work and how being honest about your work exam seriously, the corrected
assessments
are
also
helps the teacher work most effectively with you.
anticipated eagerly and a sense
2. Give alternating kids different versions or different ordered
of urgency prevails in improving
papers within the same exam, so that will not be tempted to
ones performance"
copy.
Sachin Jain, Teach for India
3. Use extra space (an empty classroom, or other space) to Fellow, 2009 Cohort
administer assessments. This works most effectively with a
co-teacher.
4. Model to kids how to cover their work with their books and assign a discipline monitor for a
row/bench.
5. Consistently enforce the message that students do not need to be afraid of making mistakes
6. Set aside a regular time to assess your kids. Many Fellows will give their formative assessments at
the same time every week, in order to make it a regular system
Grading Assessments
Here are some Fellow strategies to efficiently grade your assessments
1. Be very clear on a grading system before you start grading. For example know the number of
marks per question before you start. This will make it much easier to score kids work quickly.
2. Make your assessments efficient so they get the information you need and no more. There should
be enough questions that are reliable and scaffolded per objective, but this can often be done with
5-6 questions for one objective. If your assessment is longer than that, ask yourself if the extra
questions are truly providing you with additional valuable information.
3. For formative assessments, if you are comfortable, give something that includes a lot more on
multiple choice questions which is easy enough for your kids or volunteers to grade. This may take
more time at first as you work with the other person to grade it, but it can save you time in the long
run and give you necessary information. While you dont want to do this for every assessment, it is
a great way to give quick and informal assessments to determine where the kids are.
Tracking Assessments
Teach for India Fellows regularly track their assessments. This means that they record their data in a
very systematic way, in an excel file called SAT (Student Achievement Tracker). For each objective,
they determine the percent mastery and enter this information into the file. There is a simplified
outline of a tracker in the Unit Planning Section of this document. You will be receiving more
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information on tracking at Institute. The data that you collect is used to inform your instructional
planning by helping you analyze your students progress. Tracking Assessments can be very timeconsuming, but there are several ways to make it quicker.
1. Either give 4, 5, or 10 points for each objective. This will make it very easy to calculate percentages
in your head when marking and entering the data into the SAT.
2. Group all questions of an objective together, which lessens the time to find a total number of
points for that objective
See the Unit Planning Section for a sample maths assessment

Page 15 of 39

Chapter 3: Long-Term Planning

When planning at Teach for India we always begin with
Backwards Planning is important
the end in mind. This is called backwards planning and
because it helps set the expectations;
is the process of setting an end goal and then planning
provide clarity on goals and hence,
backwards and determining exactly how to get there.
makes the achievements measurable. Backwards planning is a necessary characteristic of
Santosh More, Teach for India Fellow,
effective teachers. The underlying idea is simple: You
2009 Cohort
must enter your classroom with a vision of where you
want your students to be at the end of the year and how to get there.
Why Is a Long-Term Plan Important?
All Fellows must aim to make significant academic gains with every student. Doing this is an immense
long term challenge and you must not lose sight of this goal when working on a daily basis. A longterm plan is a document that maps out what you are going to teach and when you will teach it. It is
made up of logically sequenced and grouped standards that build upon each other and lead towards
your year-end goals.
An admirable goal for a Fellow could be to cover as much material as possible however, this approach
invariably fails. This is because without a logical grouping of topics and a guide of how much time is
available you will lose your sense of urgency and direction. It would be like climbing a mountain and
traveling as much as possible in one day but not necessarily in the direction of the summit! A long
term plan is revised and updated throughout the year as unexpected circumstances arise or the speed
of student learning increases. However, having a clearly mapped out long term plan is vital for your
success as a Fellow.
The 4 steps to creating a Long-Term Plan
1.
2.
3.
4.

Use the Final Exams and Standards to Determine Unit Learning Outcomes
Group learning outcomes into Units, aligned to the SSC curriculum
Logically Order the units and map with your School Calendar
Continually adjust your plan

1. Use the Final Exams and Standards to Determine Unit Learning Outcomes
In order to determine the main learning goals for your students, you will need to consult several
different resources. These include the EI Standards, the Teach for India End of Year Exams, appropriate
lists of prioritized EI standards and any other end of year exams you must administer at your school
(e.g. SSC or ASSET). The exams are a sample of what skills and knowledge will be assessed at the end
of the year and how it will be assessed.
We understand that you are probably unfamiliar with what exactly a 3rd standard child needs to know
in maths. However, reviewing these resources will help you to gain clarity on what exactly is expected
of your kids and by thinking carefully about them you will be able to craft the broad learning outcomes
Page 16 of 39

for your students. The greater understanding you have of what your students need to know, the easier
it will become for you to lead them there.
2. Group Learning Outcomes into Units, Aligned to the SSC curriculum
Once you know the basics of what you want your kids to do, you need to begin grouping those goals
together. Matching up the EI standards you must cover with the SSC curriculum topics is a big
challenge and might take some time. You must look at how specific learning goals map directly to the
SSC curriculum, or determine what chapters would be natural extensions of specific standards. For
example, you would align EI Standards pertaining to multiplication with the corresponding chapters on
multiplication in the SSC text book. There are many topics in EI that are not covered by the SSC
curriculum but must still be covered if we are to maximize student learning and reduce the educational
inequity in your classroom.
Your long term plan for English and Maths will look different. The English EI standards need to be
revisited more regularly and frequently than for Maths. For example, a student needs continual
practice with reading comprehension to build this skill, so you will not just teach one lesson on it and
then move on. Instead, you will frequently spiral through topics, revisiting them again and again at a
higher level to build up specific skills.
3. Logically Order the Units and Map with Your School Calendar
Once you have decided what you need to teach you must decide when you will teach each topic or
unit. It is essential that you have a long term calendar for your school and know exactly when public
holidays are so you can calculate the number of instructional days you have. You will be hard pressed
for time and it is likely that you may need to prioritize some of your content, talking to second year
Fellows on how to do this is essential. Additionally make sure you include several contingency days as
unexpected circumstances always arise.
4. Continually Adjust Your Plan
It is rare for a long-term plan to be perfect the first time and to anticipate everything correctly. Fellows
continuously adjust their plans based on the data. For example, one unit may have taken longer than
you anticipated or you may have recognized that youre kids lacked some important pre-requisite skills
and you then had to spend time covering these. This does not mean you should forget about your longterm plan, this just means that you should adjust it to reflect any changes. In spite of any changes you
make you must retain your long term vision of where your students are going and exactly how the class
will get there.

Page 17 of 39

An example of the first two months of a long term plan created in MS Excel. Notice how both the EI
standards and SSC content have been mapped for each month, the number of instructional days has
been noted and any additional notes that might affect instruction for example the comment on the
style of place value questions are included too.

Long Term Plan for the 3rd Grade Superstar Class

Total number of instructional weeks/days in school year:
Total number of instructional weeks/days for all units included in Long Term Plan:
MATHS
Month

EI stds

SSC Chapter

170
150
Additional Notes

Term 1 (June 2010 to October 2010

June

3.1 Students extend naming and

representation of numbers to 10000. They
3.3 They recognize representations using

Learning about nos

Introducing 3 digit nos
Reading 3 digit nos and
Place Value & Face Value

4 Non Instructional Days

20 Instructional Days
July

Set aside time to establish

Expectations and Routines

School Sports Day 23rd & 24th

Parents day closes 20th
Diagnostic exams 10th

3.2 They understand the place-value

structure of the base-ten number system and
are able to efficiently decompose (expand)
and compose numbers using place value.
3.2 They recognize equivalent expanded
representations for the same number and
compare and order the numbers.

Style of Place value questions

different in scholarship exam and
Expanded form of 2 digit nos SSC exam - teach both methods
Comparing nos
The biggest and the smallest
no.
Ascending & Descending
order

1 Non Instructional Days

21st Preparation for

Independance Day

23 Instructional Days

Page 18 of 39

Chapter 4: Unit Planning

Even while having a long-term vision of where your classroom is headed; it is vital to know the micro
level steps that you will take to get there. You create Units of work to break up the long term plan into
more specific and manageable steps. Each unit covers approximately 4-6 weeks. The steps of creating
an effective Unit Plan are as below:
1. Use your long term plan to develop your Unit Vision
The first step of effective unit planning is to develop your unit vision. Similar to how Fellows approach
the whole year, beginning a unit requires you being clear on where you hope to end. To do this, refer
to your Long Term plan and extract the specific standards and topics you want to cover for the unit.
2. Break your Learning Goals into lesson objectives
After step 1 you will know the main topics and specific EI standards you need to cover. The EI
Standards are broad and need to be broken down into the finer topics that they are made up of. The EI
standards and SSC content can then be
used to create very specific, student The three criteria for lesson objectives:
centered objectives. This is not an easy skill 1. Lesson objectives must be Student centered
to master and many Fellows take several 2. Lesson objectives must be Measureable
months to get it right. Look at the sample 3. Lesson objectives must be Rigorous
Maths Unit Plan below and you will notice
how each standard is broken into a very specific objective that outlines the exact skill that the student
will be able to perform. Objectives must be student centered because they must tell you exactly what
the student will be able to do. In order for you to understand if a student has mastered a particular
objective it needs to be measurable so that you can determine whether it has been met. Look at the
following examples of student-centered and measureable objectives
Poor Objective
The
student
will
understand the major
parts of speech in a
sentence.
The
teacher
will
present a lesson on
ordering
fractions
with
different
denominators.
The student will learn
how to use details in
writing to make ideas
more interested

The Problem
This objective is not measurable.
How will you know for certain
whether students understand?

Good Objective
The student will be able to identify and
define the major parts of speech in a
sentence.

This objective is not student- The student will be able to order fractions
centered.
with different denominators.

This objective is not measurable.

The student will be able to insert details

in a sentence to describe characters

An easy way to remember to make objectives student-centered is to use the terminology student will
be able to or SWBAT. This is standard Teach for India practice when writing objectives. In terms of
Page 19 of 39

making objectives measureable, be sure to avoid verbs like know, understand, or learn. In
addition to the above criteria, objectives you create must be at an appropriate level for your students,
that is they must be rigorous.
3. Sequence your Content and Scaffold your Lesson Objectives
The next step in the unit planning process is to sequence your content and scaffold your lesson
objectives. It is important to establish foundational knowledge and skills before teaching students
higher order concepts. Scaffolding means the gradual build-up in difficulty level and this is an
important way to support and assist
2.7.1 SWBAT state multiplication as repeated addition
students in enabling them to reach
2.7.2 SWBAT illustrate multiplication problems through visual
challenging objectives.
It gives
representations of repeated addition
students smaller steps to digest and
2.7.3 SWBAT: Decompose Multiplication as repeated addition
helps you more easily discern the
(and vice versa)
extent of a students mastery of a
2.8.1 SWBAT match visual representations of multiplication
topic. Take a look at the sequence of
with the multiplication problem
2.9.1 SWBAT perform multiplication/division problems based
objectives in the sample maths unit
on 2/5/10 multiplication tables
plan:
2.10.1 SWBAT solve 1 digit by 1 digit multiplication problems
2.10.2 SWBAT solve 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication problems
2.10.3 SWBAT solve 3 digit by 1 digit multiplication problems

Note how the skills build on each other

and are often based on the prior skill.
This is most obvious with the 1 digit multiplication problem set. Students must be able to do 1 digit by
1 digit multiplication before they move on to 3 by 1 digit multiplication. Below is a sample November
Unit Plan with the EI standards broken into objectives and sequenced according to the order they will
be taught in. Notice it has a column for notes on SSC and how the SSC curriculum can be aligned with
specific sections. The final column is lists the specific question numbers in the Units summative
assessment and which objective they test.

Page 20 of 39

Month: November

Name: Ram
Unit Assessment Created:

Yes
What overall themes, if any, will you use?
Mutiply to fly. Linking theme to Airport next to school and we will build on our counting of the aeroplanes by thinking how many
passengers are in each plane and at every airport.
Sequenced Maths
Q No.
EI Standard
SWBAT Objective
SSC Notes
Division
2.7 They are able to understand the meaning of
2.7.1 SWBAT state multiplication as repeated addition
1
multiplication (repeated addition) and division (equal 2.7.2 SWBAT illustrate multiplication problems through visual Page 32
2
simple sums,
sharing, grouping) and their effect using concrete
representations of equal sharing
format
objects, pictures.
2.7.3 SWBAT: Decompose Multiplication as repeated addition different to EI
3
(and vice versa)
exam
2.8 They know symbolical representation of
2.8.1 SWBAT match visual representations of multiplication
4
multiplication and division and understand that we
with the multiplication problem
cannot divide a smaller number by a larger number (as
of now).
2.9 They understand that multiplication and division
2.9.1 SWBAT perform multiplication/division problems based on Chapter 4
5
are based on multiplication tables and understand,
2/5/10 multiplication tables
good intro
construct and learn multiplication tables of 2 to 5 and
10.
2.10 They understand and correctly use vertical
2.10.1 SWBAT solve 1 digit by 1 digit multiplication problems
6
algorithm for multiplication and division for upto three 2.10.2 SWBAT solve 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication problems
7
digit numbers by one-digit numbers without and with 2.10.3 SWBAT solve 3 digit by 1 digit multiplication problems
8
composing/decomposing including those in which
2.10.4 SWBAT identify the terms related to multiplication and
9
remainder is left behind. They know the terms related their properties.
to division (dividend, divisor, quotient and remainder).

4. Create Your Summative Assessment

To give a clearer sense of the exact skills that students will need to perform in the unit effective
teachers write their summative assessment before they begin teaching. In addition to providing you
with added direction of the skills that you need to build in your students, the summative assessment
serves as a benchmark of where your kids need to be at the end of the unit. It creates a sense of
urgency and ensures that you maintain high expectations of yourself and your students. The objectives
in the Sample Unit Plan above were used to create the cut down assessment below (questions 2 and 3
are show):

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If we look at the Maths Sample Unit Assessment, we see the exact questions that the students will be
required to answer on the assessment. These give you more clarity on what students should be able to
do by the end of the unit. The two questions on the Maths Sample Unit Assessment fulfill the criteria
of an effective and valid assessment, mentioned in Chapter 2. The questions are aligned to the
corresponding objective and all of them demonstrate true mastery.
5. Schedule your Objectives on your School Calendar
The next step is to schedule your objectives on the school calendar. Below is the calendar that forms
part of the Maths Sample Unit Plan, the maths objectives are scheduled on the calendar, along with
other subjects and teaching commitments. Notice in this plan there is a terminal exam on the Monday
and so instructional time is reduced. This highlights the importance of good scheduling and you must
always consider adding in contingency time for every week and Unit. This is an essential buffer for you
Page 22 of 39

to guard against unexpected interruptions and helps to keep you and your student on track if you find
students require extra time to master a topic. As a novice teacher these situations frequently occur,
and its good to be realistic about your scheduling with this in mind.
WEEK
DAY
Time(min)
7:20-7:30
7:30 - 8:00

8:00 - 8:30

8:30 - 9:15

9:15-10:00

Term Exam

MON

Break10:00 - 10:20 Break

10:20-10:50

10:50-11:20

11:20-11:50

11:50-12:10

WEDNESDAY 11th Nov

2
THURSDAY 12th Nov

FRIDAY 13th Nov

SATURDAY 14th Nov

Assembly

Assembly

Assembly

Assembly

Assembly

Marathi

Morning Meeting
Phonics/sight words

Marathi

Morning Meeting
Phonics/sight words

Morning Meeting
Phonics/sight words

2.26.2 read a calendar to

3.44.2 SWBAT identify the
RC : 3.44.1 SWBAT identify
determine the number of
correct answer to factual
characters, actions and/or
days in the month/the day
questions (who, what, where,
descriptions in a text.
of the week for a specific
when, yes/no, true/false)
2.7.2 SWBAT illustrate
2.7.1 SWBAT state division
2.7.3 SWBAT: Decompose
division problems through Multiplication as repeated
as repeated
subtraction/equal sharing visual representations of
addition (and vice versa)
equal sharing
Vowelssounds.
G1. Articles a,an,the
G2. Conjunctionsand,but
Break

Break

Science SSC 9. Our Food Science SSC Our Food and

and Water
Water

Term Exam

TUESDAY 10th Nov

3.44.2 SWBAT identify the

correct answer to factual Reading Comprehension
questions (who, what, Lesson with Extra Support
where, when, yes/no,
2.8.1 SWBAT match visual
Math Division Weekly
representations of
'assesment
multiplication with the
multiplication
problem
G3. Conjuctions or, and
,but

Break

Break

Science SSC Our Food and

Water

Civics SSC Our School

History SSC 6. Village Settlement

Half Day

History SSC 7. Changing LifeStyles

Writer's workshop 1

Writer's workshop-Draft

Writer's workshop-Enhance

Writer's workshop-Edit

H.W. / Sight words/new

vocab words

H.W. / Sight words/new

vocab words

H.W. / Science Worksheet

Chapter 9

H.W./ History Worksheet

Chapter 6,7

6. Create Your Beginning of Unit Diagnostic Tool

Diagnostics are administered at the beginning of each year however; shorter diagnostic assessments
can be used prior to teaching a new Unit at your discretion. The purpose of the beginning of unit
diagnostic tool is for you to get a sense of student understanding or background knowledge on specific
objectives you are teaching. If you discover that the students are already successful on the planned
objectives, it is possible to push students higher and quicker. Alternatively the students might lack
some of the pre-requisite skills for the topic and more time can be spent addressing them.
7. Create a Tracking System for Your Unit
When planning your unit, it is important to create a system that makes tracking your students results
as meaningful and efficient as possible. The Teach For India SAT, (Student Achievement Tracker)
provides an efficient way of entering data to record your student achievement. This data becomes
useful in conversations with your Program Manager and becomes important for you when you reflect
on your classroom. Furthermore, it is vital for informing your instructional planning and is a
fundamental part of being an exemplary teacher. Below are several tips for making tracking faster and
easier:
1. Group questions on the same objective together, this makes it quicker to get a total for each
objective
2. Create questions with total scores of 4, 5 or 10. This makes calculating percentages quick and easy
Page 23 of 39

3. Use boxes to record and highlight marks for each objective. This makes data entry after marking
faster.
Below is a simplified example of what an empty SAT tracker would look like for three students and the
first six objectives taught. Notice that the date and corresponding EI standard are always recorded
along with each objective.

Class Average
Deepti
Suman
Prem

24/11/10
2.9
SWBAT Skip perform multiplication
problems based on 2/5/10
multiplication tables

24/11
2.8
SWBAT Match visual representations
of multiplication with the
multiplication problem

24/11
2.7
SWBAT Decompose Multiplication as
repeated addition (and vice versa)

Student Name

24/11
2.7
SWBAT illustrate multiplication
problems through visual
representations of equal sharing

SAT November:
Multiply to fly

20/11
2.7
SWBAT state multiplication as
repeated addition

Date
EI Standard

8. Continually adjust your plan

The reality of teaching is that you are constantly forced to reflect on the data about your students
learning and adjust your plans. Timely adjustments and updates to unit plans are vital to maximizing
your effectiveness and ultimately your students achievement.

Page 24 of 39

Chapter 5: The Five Step Lesson Plan

Lesson Planning Overview
The previous sections have given you an idea of the
bigger picturewhat students need to know at the yearlong level and at the unit level. Once you have these two
plans and you have calendared your learning objectives,
the next step is to create a lesson plan for each session
that you are teaching every day.

"The difference in my mastery levels

has been 20-30% on a day when I had
5 step lesson plans for each and every
session to days when I didnt have all
the sessions well planned. The kids at
the lowest level gain the most with
your planning and do this for them if
not for yourself"
Tarun Cherukuri, Teach for India
Fellow, 2009 Cohort

At Teach For India, the structure we use to plan the

lesson is the 5-step lesson plan. As novice teachers, we
encourage you to use the five-step lesson plan for its
ease of use. However, we do acknowledge that this is
not the only type of lesson plan that you can use. When you are introduced to the English Progression
Plan at Institute, you will also be introduced to other types of lesson plans, specifically for teaching
writing to your students. In the rest of this chapter, we will break down the components of the fivestep lesson plan.
Components of a Five-Step Lesson Plan
Regardless of the lesson plan format, all lesson plans need to align to a learning objective, and must
build towards long-term instructional goals. The format for the five-step lesson plan is:

Lesson opening
Introduction to new material
Guided practice
Independent practice
Lesson closing

Backwards plan your lesson

To create your lesson plan, you should backwards plan in the same way you design your assessments,
long-term plan, and unit plans. Under this approach, you start planning your lesson with the end in
mind. This means that you should first have a clear lesson objective. Based on your objective, you can
then determine a vision for how your students will demonstrate that they have mastered this
objective. Once you have determined the objective and what student mastery will look like, you can
then decide how to teach the material to ensure that students understand the content and can
practice this new content or skill. In this way, you can backwards plan to ensure that all the
components of the lesson plan will lead to student mastery at the end of the session. Below we will go
through each step of the lesson plan in the order in which you should plan your lesson.
To help you understand the five steps of the lesson plan, we will use the following learning objective:
SWBAT identify characters, actions and/or descriptions in a text

Page 25 of 39

Step 1: Independent Practice: Students independently demonstrate their learning

Once you have your learning objective, you can determine how your students will demonstrate
mastery. In the objective above, this means that in a given text, students will be able to identify
characters and will be able to identify actions and descriptions in the passage. The independent
practice part of the lesson plan can also act as the assessment to determine student mastery. By the
end of independent practice, students should be able to achieve the objective that you set at the
beginning of the lesson. If you use the independent practice section as a way of assessing mastery of
the objective, then you should begin planning at this step (after first developing your vision for student
learning).
For the objective above, the independent practice section of the lesson plan can look like this:
Passage:
Once there lived a scholar by the name of Vidyasagar. He was a learned man, but he was also
quite vain and boastful. He looked down upon others and spoke to them rudely. He was a real
show-off.
One day, he was invited to give a lecture in a nearby village. He had to cross a big river to go to
that village. So he called a boatman and ordered him to ferry him across the river. The boatman
was a simple man. With great respect, he took Vidyasagar to his boat and helped him to get in
1. Who are the characters in the story (tick the correct ones)
a. Vidyasagar
b. Boatman
c. Teacher
d. Village
2. Which words below are action words: (tick the correct ones)
a. run
b. tall
c. tree
d. jump
3. Which words below are describing words:
a. short
b. house
c. honest

d. school

4. Vidyasagar spoke to other people very _______

a) nicely
b) honestly
c) rudely
d) softly
5. At the end, what did the boatman do?
a. Looked down upon others
b. Gave a lecture
c. Helped Vidyasagar get in

Step 2: Guided Practice: Students practice with the assistance of the teacher
Once you determine what mastery looks like on your objective, the next step is to establish how
students will practice the skills they have learned during the session. Prior to demonstrating their
mastery independently, the guided practice section of the lesson plan will allow students to practice
Page 26 of 39

their new skills with teacher guidance. This will allow the teacher to determine how many students are
on track to mastering the objective and will allow the teacher to provide one-on-one assistance to
students who are still struggling to master the objective.
Practice is often a very under-appreciated part of learning. Beginning Fellows often place so much
time on the introduction of new material that they do not recognize that practice is how learning best
occurs. On the other hand, sometimes Fellows go from presenting the material, straight to
independent work of the students without supporting the students through practice. The release from
the Fellows to the students must be gradual. Effective guided practice therefore gets students started
on the path to demonstrating mastery on the skill. Research supports the view that kids not only need
to practice effectively, but this practice must be repeated over time in order for kids to retain material
for the long-term.
In short, guided practice is a chance for students to begin practicing the skills with teacher and
classmate support. We will now focus on some key criteria of effective guided practice.

Be clear and model behavioral expectations. You will need to be very explicit about the behaviors you
wish to see in these small group settings.
Ensure that all students have an opportunity to practice. A common and dangerous mistake during the
guided practice phase of the lesson cycle is to allow one student to serve as a representative for the
entire class, leaving the rest of the students without adequate practice.
Use multiple opportunities for practice. In order to solidify skills and concepts in students minds,
Fellows will plan a host of practice tasks a series of problems, rather than just one or two. This is a
basic element of learning theory. Again, think about how often you have practiced skills that you now
excel at.
Scaffold practice exercises from easy to hard. Scaffolding means the building up of difficulty of
problems in order to support your students as they practice. The basic principal here is to ensure your
students understand the simple problems before moving onto the complex ones.
Be clear how an activity aligns to the objective. Often, teachers intending to be creative will launch
students off into some creative activity without it clearly aligning to the objective. Remember that
alignment is your first priority. Once that is established, it is great to be creative; however, creativity
without alignment will not move your kids forward.
Monitor and correct student performance. The whole point of guided practice is to provide a sheltered
environment for students to shape their knowledge or skills. If students are showing signs of
confusion, this is the time to go back and review missed concepts or ideas.
For our lesson objective, a guided practice section will include:

Page 27 of 39

From story Khashaba Jadhav, (students have read this story earlier in the year and will not
remember details), have kids read the first two lines of one paragraph on their own. They are told
to identify the characters and then identify the actions or descriptions about them. Then, they
discuss as a group of 4 (remind class of group-work goals), what character they found and some
actions or descriptions about the character. Based on this, students will answer the following
questions in their groups:
1. Who are the characters in the story (tick the correct ones)
a. lawyer
b. khashaba jadhav
c. cow
d. house
2. Which words below are action words: (tick the correct ones)
a. play
b. buy
c. basket
d. sky
3. Which words below are describing words:
a. large
b. house
c. liar
d. school
4. Khashaba Jadhav was a very _______ man.
e) nice
f) quiet
g) good
h) mean
Repeat this process with the next paragraph (4-5 lines), kids discuss as groups, and then share out
as a class and come to a consensus. Call on a 2-3 students from different levels.
Depending on time, do this a 3rd time, again in pairs.
Throughout this, the teacher is monitoring by listening and prompting kids when necessary. All kids
are required to write down the characters and actions/descriptions, independently, and then also
their group or pairs consensus, as well as the final class list.
Step 3: Introduction to New Material: the explicit explanation
Now that you know how students will demonstrate mastery and how they will practice the skills
needed to demonstrate mastery, you can then plan the introduction to new material section of the
lesson. The introduction to new material is the key section in which you present the new material of a
lesson. We cannot over-emphasize the importance of this section, as the clarity and ease with which
the information is presented and conveyed will have a huge effect on your kids learning. It is not
uncommon for Fellows to find themselves explaining one concept and then realizing in the middle of
the presentation that they need to explain a second or third idea as background for understanding the
first. The main point is lost, and the students cannot discern what it was they were supposed to have
learned. One cannot underestimate the importance of this fact: when its time to tell your class what
they need to know, the information students glean completely depends on what you present and how
you present it.
To help you plan your introduction to new material, here are five guiding questions and principles to
effective explanations.
Page 28 of 39

What information will you convey? Emphasize and reiterate key points without glossing over ideas or
drowning students in detail. Effective teachers determine what they want their students to be able to
leave the classroom being able to say, think or do, which is reflected in their assessment. Identifying
what key points to emphasize, however, can be challenging, especially for new teachers.
How will you convey the information? Use multiple approaches when presenting new information.
Two basic methods teachers use to help present material are modeling and lecture. Many teachers
often mix both techniques in a single lesson depending on the context of their instruction. In the
sample introduction to new material below, notice how the teacher first defines actions, characters
and descriptions, has a T-chart to help students visualize better and then does a Think-Aloud with
his/her students.
What will the students be doing? Even when you are introducing new material, ensure that students
are occupied and are constantly engaged in the lesson. In the lesson plan, notice how the teacher has
students writing things during the Think-Aloud to ensure that students are engaged in the material.
How will you know that your students understand? Target Potential Misunderstandings. You need
to anticipate potential areas of confusion and make sure that your lesson addresses these. Also, make
connections with prior content to help students not feel overwhelmed by the material.
How will you know that your students understand? Check for understanding. Before moving to
student practice, it is important to assess student understanding of the new material. If students are
struggling, you will need to adjust how you are presenting the material before moving on. It is often
useful to call on students from different ability groups to ensure that both your highest and lowest
achieving students are mastering the material.
Heres a sample introduction to new material, for the objective above:
The words characters, verbs, and adjectives have all been done before and mastered. However,
since it is important to know these terms, quickly review them.
Define characters, actions, and descriptions by giving examples and non-examples for each. Have
kids additionally give examples of each. Identify kids from various groups to give responses to
determine how well established these pre-requisite skills are. Next tell students that we want to
be able to talk about characters, and will say what they did or tell things about the charactesr.
To be able to identify characters actions or descriptions, we need to follow two steps (Students
will write down these steps)
1) Identify the character
2) Locate the verbs and adjectives about the character. These are the actions and
descriptions of the character
Make a T-chart with character on the left, and actions and descriptions on the right, with an
arrow from the left part to the right. As you are doing the think-alouds, have students write down
the characters on the t-chart and the words/actions that the teacher comes up with for them.
Read a passage from a prior story, Smiles, the Clown. Do a Think-Aloud, reading the 2nd
paragraph, and show how you identify the character (the king) and then look for the actions and
descriptions about the king. Do a second think aloud about the clown (next paragraph). In the
final think aloud, ask the students to identify actions and descriptions about the clown as a CFU.
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Step 4: The opening: what students will learn and why it is important
Lesson openings and closings are often ignored or downplayed by novice teachers. However, research
shows that a strong opening and closing will set the tone for the class and promote learning in the
classroom. The following text summarizes key points to cover in a lesson opening.

Communicate to students what they are going to learn.

Communicate to students why it is important to learn this material.
Communicate to students how it relates to what has been done previously.
Communicate to students how the learning will occur.
Most importantly engage students and capture their interest.

In our lesson plan, an opening could look like this:

Do a series of verbs like sit, stand, laugh, sing, cry, climb, ruminate, sleep, sit, meditate, breathe
in, and breathe out. Give words to describe yourself and others in the class.
Tell students that today they will continue working on reading comprehension, and specifically
looking at ways to give information about people like what they are doing or how they are.
Step 5: Closing: reinforcing the importance of todays lesson
The lesson closing is an important opportunity for the Fellow to summarize and reinforce the lesson
and check for student understanding. This is also an ideal opportunity to summarize the importance of
what has been learning and potentially connect it to future lessons. In the sample lesson plan, the
closing would look like this:
Ask students why they learned what they did- (To be able to speak about characters or some
variation of that)
Ask students what are the steps to identify characters actions and descriptionshave kids discuss
in groups, and then call on a 2-3 kids for inputs.

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Chapter 6: Strategies for the Classroom

This section includes some general strategies that have worked successfully in Teach for India
classrooms. The previous chapter explained how to create a five part lesson plan, this chapter outlines
some specific ideas that can be incorporated into your lesson plan or set up within your classroom to
help improve the learning environment. Additionally it deals with some of the more unexpected issues
that you might face as a Fellow.
The strategies below will not work in isolation; you must plan carefully for their implementation and
then consistently reinforce them. Remember it is essential that you attempt to create detailed lesson
plans for your classroom in conjunction with any strategy you implement.
1. Addressing Classroom Disruptions
Unexpected disruptions to your classroom are an inconvenience because they disrupt your planned
teaching time. Unfortunately they are a regular occurrence and you must be prepared to mitigate
their effects. The following will give you some ideas of what to expect and how you could try to
prevent the given examples from recurring.

Parents want to meet you during in class time:

At your first parent meeting explain that you are more than happy to talk to them before or after
school; reinforce this message to parents throughout the year.
The Principal calls impromptu meetings during the day:
Invest the Principal in holding meetings before or after school and not during lesson time; if it is urgent,
inform the Principal that you will see her during the next break.
Other teachers are regularly late or absent leaving you to cover their class:
Invest your Principal in having a clear routine for how this is managed, rotating this duty throughout
the teaching staff for example or recruiting extra staff to cover if this becomes a regular event. The
longer this issue remains unaddressed the harder it will be for you to change it as Principals will see
you coping and want it to continue.
Classes are combined when teachers are absent:
Work within the school systems to minimize the negative impact to your class and the additional
students. Make sure you are clear on the procedure that will be implemented if a class is to be
combined, how it will affect you and for how long. You must act to minimize its effect on your
students and the other class; for example, if you have a basic knowledge of the other Grades
curriculum you will be able to set students more meaningful tasks to do even if you have not taught
them before.
Parents sometimes bring tiffins into the classroom:
Talk to parents about the effect of this on your class and arrange a system for them to leave the tiffin
at the front of the room for the student.
Students from other classes enter your classroom:
If possible lock your classroom door to prevent this happening. Additionally follow up with the
students who enter your class and explain why it is an unacceptable behavior for them.
The following are activities that can be used by teachers when they have time with their kids, but
because of disruptions, they cannot follow or use the prepared five step lesson plan for the session.
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These activities can reduce the effect of a disruption on your class be ensuring that some learning
continues to take place

Make your own Flashcard Activities that practice important skills such as arithmetic or phonics
Have extra reading passages available for your kids to practice with
Have grade appropriate books available for kids to read
Have Maths games available that use few resources but address important skills
Have a list of writing topics that students can practice writing with
Have educational puzzles for students

It is strongly advisable to plan contingency time within Unit plans to help accommodate any
unexpected disruptions. This allows flexibility when disruptions do arise and helps to ensure that you
do not fall behind schedule. In the case that disruptions do not arise, Fellows can use this time to
teach extension material or to revise skills that students struggled on.
2. Co-Teaching Strategies
In the upcoming year, a significant number of you will be co-teachers. For this system to work, both
teachers need to work effectively as a teaching team to enable student achievement. Some of the
most important reasons for placing two teachers in a single classroom are to:

maximise student learning,

ensure the student - teacher ratio is never higher than 40 : 1,
more easily differentiate instruction based on student needs,
enable easier classroom management, and
thought partner with another Fellow on planning and tracking

Working with Your Co-Teacher

Developing an effective working relationship with your co-teacher may take time. However, there are
several strategies that Teach for India Fellows have employed to help them be outstanding coteachers.
1. Set clear working expectations from the beginning. Make sure both teachers are clear about what is
expected from each other and compromise when expectations are different. You should also ensure
that there is clear role division between both teachers, within and outside the classroom.
2. Agree upon classroom norms and procedures so that you both have consistent expectations for your
kids. While each teacher will have his or her own personal style, the basic expectations of your kids
should be consistent between both teachers.
While your co-teacher is leading a
class, it is not break time. You are an
3. Communicate honestly and openly with your coequal and strong partner in the subject
teacher. Consistently take and give honest and
even when you are not actively
respectful feedback to help improve your teaching and teaching. Impart knowledge whenever
students learning as much as possible.
possible.
Fiona Vaz, Teach for India Fellow, 2009
Cohort
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4. Plan your lessons together. If this is not always possible write down exactly what each co-teacher
will be doing.
It is important to remember that you and your co-teacher need not be great friends. However, you will
spend a significant portion of your day in the classroom together and it is your responsibility that you
take the time to understand each other better.
The Co-teaching Model: Team Teaching
Currently, many teachers use the One Lead and One Support model of co-teaching. In this model, each
teacher assumes responsibility for half the subjects. For each subject, one teacher leads and another
offers assistance and support to individuals or small groups.
However, Teach For India recommends using the Team Teaching model of co-teaching. In this model
both teachers share the planning and instruction of students in a coordinated fashion. For this model
to work there needs to be joint planning time, equal knowledge of the content, a shared philosophy,
and commitment to all students.
For the team teaching model to be effective, co-teachers must follow the steps below:

Long term plan: Jointly create a long-term plan for your students based on diagnostic results. In this
long-term plan, you will have a joint vision for where your students will be at the end of the year
Unit plan: From the long-term plan, you will then create a unit-plan using the steps outlined in
Chapter 4 and schedule your objectives on your school calendar.
Planning for the week: Once you have your weekly calendar (from your unit plan), you should then
jointly plan the sessions you are teaching. We recommend that on the Saturday of every week, you
plan for at least Monday through Wednesday of the following week together. On Wednesday of
every week, you can then plan for Thursday through Saturday.
Lesson plan introduction to new material: While planning your individual lessons, one co-teacher
should take the lead on delivering the introduction to new material to the entire class. The other
teacher is still present in class and monitoring individual students during this section of the lesson
and assisting students who need additional instruction.
Lesson plan guided practice: During the guided practice section of the lesson, you will divide the
class into two pre-determined groups (you should decide on these groups and be consistent in the
division to ensure classroom management). Both groups of students will work their tasks, and each
co-teacher will monitor one group and continuously check for understanding.
Lesson plan independent practice: While your students are independently demonstrating their
mastery of the material, each co-teacher will continue to ensure that his/her group of students is
working on the task. This is also the time when you can provide individual attention to students
within your group who are struggling with the material. Once your students complete their work,
each teacher will then be responsible for grading and tracking student progress.

Challenges with Co-teaching:

1. Often, the hardest issue faced by co-teachers is interpersonal difficulties. Many co-teaching pairs
go through periods when they are not communicating effectively with each other; when there is no
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coordination in planning and execution; and when there has been discomfort with the differences
in individual styles. We understand that working together with another person is difficult, but we
ask you to remember that the reason we place co-teachers in one class because it will have an
increased impact on your students. While facing difficulties with your co-teacher, we urge you to
remember this underlying principle and know that both of you are equally invested in your
students and have the same vision for your students success.
2. Co-teaching is not equal to subject teaching (i.e. one teacher teaches Maths for the entire year and
the other teaches English). Instead both teachers in the classroom have an equal opportunity to
teach all subjects.
3. While observing and providing feedback to your co-teacher, it is important to always frame the
feedback in a respectful manner. It is also important to connect the feedback to student outcomes
and habits in your class, and specific teacher actions that resulted in positive student outcomes and
teacher actions that didnt have the same effect on student outcomes. This will ensure that there
are no personal feelings associated with your feedback and it is always about the end results for
the students.
Despite these challenges, co-teaching will afford your students the chance to succeed and for this
reason, the co-teaching model is integral to Teach For India.
3. Planning Extra Classes
Teachers often find that constrains in the classroom, such as the large number of students and limited
teaching time means that the teacher is unable to give individual students the attention they require.
Teach For India Fellows have worked around this
"It is important to ensure that every student
problem by planning extra classes, either before or
gets a fair amount of extra time and
after school. Extra classes are one of the best
methods to improve your students progress. We remediation yes, even the above-average
students. This time is also very useful to glean
strongly encourage you to find space and time to
hold extra classes for your students. Extra classes insights into how a particular students mind
works, how he or she is "wired", and whether
are most effective in smaller groups. Like a regular
they are auditory, visual or kinesthetic
lesson, the teacher needs to have a very clear
learners. It also builds trust and faith in the
vision for the extra class.
teacher as they bask in the personal
The structure of these extra classes can vary, but a attention.
Sachin Jain Teach for India Fellow, 2009 Cohort
few of the methods and strategies successfully
used by Teach For India Fellows are listed below.

Use your data to separate children into sub groups. Then get the different groups to attend extra
classes that you have planned for them based on their needs.
Use extra classes to enrich the content you are teaching for more able students, and really push
and challenge these students to go well beyond the curriculum.
Use extra classes to teach pre-requisite material that students may be struggling with in order to
catch them up to the grade-level topics in class.
In a remedial classes focus on skills and go a step lower or start from scratch. You could use the
extra classes to pre-teach material to lower-level students, to make them more successful when
you present the lesson to the whole class.
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Use a lot of positive reinforcement and be extra sensitive with struggling kids; they have a history
of failure, do not add to it.

Vipul Shahas experience

I saw the need for extra classes because after my first school exam all the students performed at very
different levels. I realised that each student had different needs and I was not meeting them in the
normal class time. Using the exam data I targeted students in to sub groups for extra classes. For my
students who were borderline or failing the school exams I set up an extra class schedule for them. I
contacted their parents and got them invested in the extra classes and really prioritised the students
who did not have much support at home or did not already have tuitions. Interestingly this sub group
of students were not so invested in normal classes but in the extra classes I found a different child
altogether. They loved the extra attention bhaiyya gave them and thrived in the extra class. The class
was for them and I tailored it to their needs. Their academic progress was slow but steady and by the
end of they had caught up enough to taste success and pass the school exams. Extra classes are a
really important tool for any Fellow to bridge the gap.
Vipul Shaha, Grade 2 Class teacher, 2009 Fellow
Teachers plan extra classes for targeted groups of students to give them additional support. The target
groups can change over time or vary each day. For example the lowest level students might attend
extra classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday whilst students requiring academic enrichment attend
on Tuesday and Thursday.
Regardless of how you structure your extra classes or exactly who the extra classes are for, for extra
classes to be successful, it requires thorough planning. A common pitfall is to believe that just having
extra time will make students improve. You need to be clear on how to present material in extra
classes, and may often need to do it in a different way in order to effectively reach students additional
needs.
Additional Issues you may face when organizing extra classes
There are many external factors that can influence your ability to run extra classes with your students.
These do not relate to the lesson content but external factors including:

Convincing parents to send their children to your extra classes and not tuitions. You must explain
the need to the parents and get their investment in your different style of teaching.
Being sensitive to the effects of your free extra classes on the livelihoods of tuition teachers that
work with your community.
Finding physical space to hold your extra classes, especially in schools with double shifts.
Arranging different times for students to be collected by rickshaw drivers or other family members.

Every school has its own unique challenges and you need to find the best workable solution for your
school and your students to hold extra classes for them.
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4. Planning For Revision

There are many exams and assessments throughout the academic year for students and you must
consider carefully how best to prepare your class for them. Targeted revision sessions before exams
can be an effective method of increasing student learning and retention. However, whilst running your
revision you must continue to build and develop your students skills and you should not teach directly
to the next test. Additionally if students are undergoing a large number of exams in a short period of
time be mindful of the activities you plan for them to do and included varied activities that students
enjoy and hold their attention.
Revision lessons are the same as all other lessons. To be effective, lessons must be objective driven
and carefully planned for. Racing through large amounts of content is not revision and will add no
value to your students. When revising a topic you should look at your assessment data and target a
specific objective that students have the lowest mastery of and plan a lesson accordingly. If students
were unable to master the content when you first taught it to them it becomes very important that
you do not teach the content in a revision lesson in exactly the same manner. You must critically
analyze why students did not master the content and innovate to find a new way to teach the
objective so that students have a greater chance of success.
Steps for Effective Revision
Step 1: Review your data and pick specific objectives that students have not mastered. This may not
be the same for every student so get ready to differentiate into sub groups of need.
Step 2: Analyze what taught the first time and why students did not master the content.
Step 3: Create a new or altered way to re-teach the revision objective. Create an objective driven
lesson plan.

Ineffective Revision
Characteristics of
Ineffective Revision
Reviewing the exact
problems on the
exam
Racing through large
amounts of content

You should NOT be reviewing the exact questions they will see on the exam.
Instead you should be giving them practice on questions aligned to the same
learning skill, but with different passages/words/numbers.
Skimming over content quickly will not allow your students to absorb any new
material. Make a targeted lesson plan that prioritizes what your students
actually need to know.
Do not review
The main purpose of backwards planning is to teach your students the
assessment specific knowledge and skills they need throughout the unit in a meaningful way. By
terms and vocabulary teaching students particular vocabulary right before the assessment, there is a
right before the exam very small likelihood that the child will retain the information for long. While he
or she might do well on the assessment, that information may not reflect his or
her true understanding.

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5. Differentiation Strategies
Why differentiate?
One of the most challenging things a new Fellow faces is effectively catering to the large range of
learning abilities in the classroom. When you begin teaching, you may be surprised to discover the
diversity of academic proficiency and learning needs in one classroom of students. Some of your
students might be struggling with language development. Some may have already mastered the math
skills you planned to teach. Some might seem proficient in spoken English, yet are three grade levels
below where they should be in reading comprehension. Some may not seem to understand your
verbal explanation of material. To address these diverse issues in the classroom, teachers begin to
differentiate instruction for individuals or groups of students. Differentiated instruction is the approach that
supports the success of all students given the different achievement levels, developmental levels, and
learning needs within one classroom.
When do you differentiate?
There are two primary reasons to differentiate in your classroom, both equally important. However,
the primary reason to differentiate is to maximize student learning through more targeted instruction.
1. Readiness: This refers to a students current performance level (lack of basic numeracy skills, for
example). In your classroom you might find a group of students who are at the same readiness
level and you can differentiate for the entire group or individual students.
2. Learning profile: In this type of differentiation, you group students based on their individual
learning styles, which includes developmental levels and methods of learning.
Regardless of the reason you are differentiating, you must make this decision based on data. You need
to analyze your students work, look at diagnostic data and your formative assessments before you
group your students for differentiated instruction. In order for differentiation to work effectively, your
classroom management must be very strong and clear procedures and rules must be in effect with
your students.
Strategies for differentiation
In conjunction with an effective plan these additional differentiation strategies can be used to further
your students success.

Group students according to ability and seat them accordingly. This allows you to direct different
material at different groups more easily
For groups of students assign a group leader. The group leader could be responsible for weaker
students in this group, doing administrative tasks to help the teacher run the class more effectively
(handing out worksheets for example) or the leader may monitor routines within the group (sitting
in ready position).
Scaffolded Assessment - Make different questions for different students. For example in a maths
assessment the kids who are struggling in reading and literacy should have more numerical and
pictorial problems than word problems.
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Multiple Worksheets - For some objectives you could make 2-3 levels of worksheets that are
aligned and cover the content in totality but in different ways or they could just vary in difficulty
level and length.
Individual goals In your classroom, based on assessment results, you can set individual goals for
your students and create individual trackers through which students can track their progress again
the goals.
Differentiated vocabulary lists If you are giving your students vocabulary lists and sight word lists,
you can differentiate the difficulty levels of the students based student levels.
Stations or learning centers You can divide your students into four groups (heterogeneous or
homogenous groups based on need). You then arrange four different stations in your classroom,
each with a different task or assignment. Students will then rotate through the stations (from
easiest to hardest, if they are in homogeneous groups or in mixed order if they are in
heterogeneous groups) to complete the tasks.

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Conclusion
As Tarun Cherukuri said at the beginning of the text, a good beginning to your teaching starts with an
excellent plan. As many of our teachers notice, strong execution in the classroom can only take your
students so far. A classroom without a plan does not achieve as much as a classroom in which a
teacher has a well-thought plan for each students progress.
For your students to succeed, you need to know where they should be at the end of the year. This
means having a clear vision for your students and planning backward to ensure that every day in the
classroom is leading your students toward this end goal. Effective plans take into consideration student
behavior, student learning levels and student interests.
Teach For India does lay a strong emphasis on planning. Beginning at summer school, you will regularly
submit lesson plans and unit plans to your Program Managers. Throughout the year, our training and
support staff will ensure that you are equipped with the skills needed to be good planners. Every plan
you submit needs to be data driven and linked to student achievement.
As novice teachers, it is important for you to be consistent and regular with your planning at the
beginning of the school year in order to develop your planning skills rapidly. Once you do, and planning
becomes a habit, you will notice significant improvements in student achievement.

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