CCSS Grade Level Working Group
Lesson Planning Summary
Grade Level ________ Unit Title _______________________________________________________ Unit Number ___________
Lesson __________________________________________________________________________________________________
Selecting and Setting Up and Sequence of Activities
Launch
 By the end of this lesson what do you want your students to
understand, know, and be able to do?
 In what ways does the task build on student’s previous
knowledge?
 What questions will you ask to help students access their
prior knowledge?
 How will you introduce students to the activity so as to
provide access to all students while maintaining the
demands of the tasks?
 What will you hear that indicates that the students
understood what the task is asking them to do?
Supporting Students’ Exploration of the Task
 What questions will be asked to focus students’ thinking on
the key mathematical ideas?
 What questions will be asked to assess student’s
understanding of key mathematical ideas?
 How will you extend the task to provide additional
challenge?
Sharing and Discussing the Task: Focus on Mathematical Goals
 What specific questions with respect to the mathematical
goals of the lesson will you ask to encourage all students to
examine and/or share their thinking and critique the
reasoning of others (make connections, see patterns, and
form generalizations)?
 What will you see or hear that indicates all students
understand the mathematical ideas you intended them to
learn?
Adapted from Thinking through a Lesson: Successfully Implementing High-Level Tasks, by Smith, Bill and Hughes. Mathematics
Teaching in the Middle School, October 2008