High-Quality Lesson Design
High-Quality Lesson Design
eMINTS believes that the best teaching and learning take place in learning environments where teachers value self-directed learning. Through the use of high-quality instructional and assessment strategies, teachers have the opportunity to create the kinds of lessons that are designed to meet the needs of learners.
Click the + below to view the High-Quality Lesson Design Competencies.
Educator equips learners to become self-directed.
Educator Exemplars
a. Allows learners to struggle with challenges and conflict.
b. Provides strategies and uses appropriate technologies to help learners understand how to become self-directed learners (e.g., setting goals, creating action plans, etc.). 
c. Incorporates strategies to maintain learner interest and motivation for learning, especially when learners encounter challenges.
d. Provides strategies, scaffolding and/or coaching to help learners become self-directed and self-reliant.
e. Allows learners to determine ways in which they will showcase their learning.
Learner Exemplars
a. Use and/or create mind maps/scaffolding tools to organize and evaluate information.
b. Choose appropriate tool(s), including technology tools (e.g., online surveys, mind-mapping software, spreadsheets, infographics), to collect, organize and analyze data to support and enhance learning.
c. Are self-reliant by using resources and scaffolding provided by educator, peers, etc., to persevere through challenges (e.g., setting goals, creating action plans, etc.).
d. Use media, displays, presentations, graphs, charts, etc., to showcase their solutions and products to peers, parents, community members, etc.
Educator uses varied assessments (formative and summative) aligned to standards (process, content, technology).
Educator Exemplars
a. Formative assessments and summative assessments are aligned to standards and learning outcomes.
b. Uses multiple strategies to monitor and inform learners of their progress toward meeting learning goals and standards on a consistent basis.
c. Designs summative assessments and scoring tools with learner input (e.g., scoring guide, rubric, etc.) that clearly target specific standards and goals.
d. Uses strategies to activate and assess learner prior knowledge.
e. Uses ongoing formative assessments (e.g., journals, group reflection, action plans, collaboration rubrics or checklists, etc.) to determine learner needs, encourage self-direction and collaboration, monitor progress, demonstrate understanding and promote metacognition.
f. Appropriately uses technologies to support all stages of the assessment process.
Learner Exemplars
a. Complete a variety of formative assessments, including educator feedback and self- and peer-evaluations, to monitor their progress toward meeting educator- and/or learner-created learning goals.
b. Demonstrate their level of mastery of skills and concepts with a variety of summative assessments (e.g., learning logs, products, tests, journals, etc.).
c. Communicate their thinking with clarity and precision when self-evaluating and participating in reflective discussions.
d. Collaborate with educator to determine criteria for success and development of assessment tools.
Educator makes instructional decisions based on data from formative and summative assessments.
Educator Exemplars
a. Uses technology tools to efficiently collect and analyze multiple forms of data.
b. Reflects on instruction using multiple forms of data to inform and adjust teaching practices.
Learner Exemplars
a. Use multiple forms of data to reflect on learning and monitor their progress toward learning goals.
The educator’s day-to-day practices address the different needs and characteristics of all learners.
Educator Exemplars
a. Implements a variety of strategies to address lack of effort, late assignments and low performance to promote learner success.
b. Provides additional time, re-teaching and scaffolding to support learners as they work toward proficiency and mastery of concepts, standards and learning outcomes.
c. Provides support to learners as they work towards proficiency and mastery of concepts, standards, and learning outcomes.
d. Uses technology tools to facilitate student choice and voice for the pace and pathway of their learning.
Learner Exemplars
a. Self monitor their progress toward proficiency and mastery of standards and learning outcomes.
b. Use technologies to access a variety of learning resources and as a tool for managing and documenting their learning process.
Educator constructs authentic, engaging, learner-centered units of study based on standards.
Educator Exemplars
a. Selects standards and learning skills that will be addressed and assessed in the lesson.
b. Uses chosen standards to design units driven by questions that emphasize depth of knowledge.
c. Identifies what learners will know and be able to do based upon the standards addressed in the unit.
d. Designs real-world tasks that challenge learners to construct new knowledge, generate ideas, provide solutions to problems and/or develop new products.
e. Develops an assessment timeline with formative and summative assessments aligned to the standards addressed in the unit.
f. Creates lessons that accommodate learners’ voice and choice in how they will meet learning standards.
g. Develops scaffolding and supports for all stages of the learning process.
h. Incorporates reflective discussions in the unit that revisit the essential question and learning goals to bridge connections between prior and new knowledge.
Learner Exemplars
a. Provide input and make choices about how to meet learning standards.
b. Ask questions that generate curiosity about a topic.
c. Engage in problems that are relevant in a local or global context.
d. Create products that are useful and meaningful in the real world.
e. Strive to develop expertise on an aspect of the topic.
f. Take ownership of the learning.
g. Explore relevance of an issue and develop empathy for others in order to solve problems.
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