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When instructors engage learners, develop ability and understanding, and amplify students鈥� identities, we call them 鈥渢ransformational teachers鈥濃�攑rofessionals who provide learners with disciplinary View-Masters so that kids can see the world in stereoscope.

But how do they prepare? Do they just show up for class and spontaneously uncork the awesome?

Obviously not.

Behind the scenes, transformational teachers labor over curriculum plans that look simple and even elegant to classroom observers. This post explains how they do that, specifically looking at nine transformational practices in planning.

How to Plan Transformational Lessons

1. Know the Standards, Curriculum, Core Concepts, and Strategies:听For decades, many educators let a textbook鈥檚 table of contents determine the scope and sequence of a course. Today, transformational teachers know their anchor standards by heart and recognize the difference between teaching strategies and learning strategies.

• Teaching strategies are approaches that teachers use to improve student learning. Example: whole-class discussion or presentation.
• Learning strategies are initiated and controlled by students to solve problems and increase their understanding. Example: using freewriting, brainstorming, and outlining to organize ideas.

Balancing teaching strategies with learning strategies keeps instructors and students actively engaged and focused on the same purpose.

2. Shift From Solo to Collaborative Lesson Design:听As teachers gain fluency in using , , , , , , , and , collaborative planning is becoming second nature.

Additionally, more sharing of relevant curriculum is occurring via terrific open education resources (OER) like , , , and even .

3. Create the Assessment Before Developing Content:听Due in part to the influence of (UbD) by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, transformational instructors no longer 鈥渢each then test.鈥� Instead, they 鈥�design the test, then teach.鈥� By building formative assessment and performance task checkpoints into their plans, instructors know when and why students don't understand a skill or concept.

4. Write Objectives for Students (Not an Administrator) to Read:听A while back, teachers submitted lesson plans for their principals to check. In many cases, the administrator remained the primary audience for written objectives. Today, objectives are posted and made understandable to students. To ensure clarity, transformational teachers follow the Goldilocks rule. Objectives can鈥檛 be too general (鈥渟tudents will learn about the Civil War鈥�) or too narrow, because narrow objectives 鈥減ut you in danger of listing activities or assignments,鈥� writes Robyn R. Jackson in .

Here鈥檚 another objective hack: To add relevance to the curriculum, simply add the stem 鈥渟o that _____鈥� at the end of each posted objective as a way of describing how the skill and content will benefit students. Example: 鈥淪tudents will be able to evaluate the credibility of sources so that they can protect our democracy from the influence of those spreading misinformation.鈥�

5. Create Presentations That Do More Showing and Less Telling:听On the rare occasion that transformational teachers lecture, they are sure to use visuals听created with tools like and . Using pictures can 鈥渂anish boredom,鈥� asserts Dan Roam, author of . To keep pace with the 30 percent of students who access online videos for homework assistance, teachers鈥� materials have become more interactive and optimized for mobile device consumption.

6. Don't Forget the Introverts:听鈥淚ntroverts like to work autonomously,鈥� says Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can鈥檛 Stop Talking, 鈥渂ut the trend in education over the past 20 years has been focused on group learning.鈥� Cain notes that popular teaching strategies like don鈥檛 allow introverts time to process what they want to say. Adding a think-pair-share activity or increasing wait time to seven seconds after asking a question plays to the strengths of introverts.

7. Provide More Opportunities for Students to Choose How They Accomplish Tasks:听 determined that teenagers鈥� lives are over-programmed: 鈥淐ontemporary teens often have little freedom to connect with others on their own terms.鈥� A boost to student motivation can occur, says Kevin Perks in Crafting Effective Choices to Motivate Students, if we let learners determine鈥攚hen possible鈥攚hom they work with, content, due dates, where to work, and how they will complete tasks.

8. Plan Ahead:听Transformational teachers plan at least a month ahead, building in flex time to absorb inevitable weather- or activity-related interruptions in the school schedule. Through careful design, each time a learner encounters skills and concepts, they are more challenging. The increases understanding and retention.

9. Integrate Productive Struggle Into the Curriculum:听Lubricating the learning process with frictionless turn-in-the-worksheet compliance denies students opportunities for productive struggle鈥攁 condition important for learning and retention, according to an article by Richard Schmidt and Robert Bjork in Psychological Science. When students struggle, relax. Don鈥檛 lower the expectations of your next lesson plan. Instead, scaffold instruction听and check to see that you鈥檙e challenging students appropriately with .

Quality curriculum planning鈥攑ublicly unacknowledged, unglamorous, and taxing鈥攊s ultimately the golden road to 补谤别迟茅 (Homer鈥檚 word for 鈥渆xemplary effectiveness鈥�). Undoubtedly the tenets of effective planning will soon change, because transformational teachers never stop learning.