Before You Plan the Lesson, Answer This Question First

Lesson planning can feel overwhelming.

Over the years, I've worked alongside and mentored many teachers, and no matter their experience, I noticed many of them—including myself—were asking the same questions when it came time to plan instruction.

What do I do with this standard? Is this lesson good enough? Am I covering everything I'm supposed to teach?

There are so many decisions to make before a lesson ever begins that it's no surprise planning can feel incredibly overwhelming. When time is limited and the demands of teaching continue to grow, it's easy to find a random activity connected to the standard, teach it, and move on.

I don't believe teachers make that choice because they don't care. I believe many of us were simply never taught how to think through the learning before planning the lessons.

Over the years, one question has changed the way I approach lesson planning more than any strategy or resource ever has:

What am I actually trying to teach?

Why Planning Feels So Hard

Teaching is a series of instructional decisions.

Every lesson asks us to make dozens of choices. What should I model? Where might students struggle? When should I provide support? How will I know they're ready to move on?

Those decisions become incredibly difficult when we aren't completely clear about the learning we're working toward.

For many teachers, planning doesn't feel overwhelming because they lack creativity or dedication. It feels overwhelming because every instructional decision depends on knowing where students are ultimately headed. When that destination isn't clear, every decision feels heavier than it needs to, and real-time feedback feels uncertain because we don't actually know what we're working toward.

The Hidden Mistake

This isn't an article about blaming teachers, schools, or districts because I truly believe we are doing the best we can. But we don't know what we don't know. I spent years making the exact same mistake myself.

When I wasn't sure how to unpack a standard or think through the learning, I naturally searched for activities, downloaded lessons, reused resources from previous years, or found something online that seemed like it matched the standard.

There is nothing wrong with those resources. The problem was that I was often beginning with the activity instead of the learning. I was exposing students to the standard without strategically progressing their learning forward.

Without a clear understanding of what students were actually meant to learn, even a great activity could become disconnected from the larger purpose of the unit.

Activities Aren't the Learning

One realization completely changed the way I thought about planning:

Activities are not the learning. They're the vehicle that helps students get there.

Once I became clearer about the destination, I became much more intentional about choosing the vehicle. The activity didn't become less important. It simply stopped becoming my starting point.

What Changes When the Learning Is Clear?

When I know exactly what students are working toward, my instructional decisions begin to feel much more purposeful.

Instead of asking myself, "What should I do tomorrow?" I begin asking, "What will move students one step closer to the end goal?"

That simple shift changes everything. Strategies become easier to choose because they have a purpose. Questions become more intentional because they have a destination. Feedback becomes more meaningful because I know exactly what students are working toward.

Teaching is still one of the most challenging professions there is, and I don't believe instructional clarity removes that challenge. What it does provide is direction. Instead of making dozens of disconnected decisions, those decisions begin working together toward a common goal.

Three Questions I Ask Before Planning

Before I begin planning a lesson, I pause and ask myself three questions.

What am I actually trying to teach?

Not what students will do. Not what activity we'll complete. What should students truly understand, apply, or demonstrate by the end of this standard?

I think of this as the destination. Before I can decide how I'm going to get students there, I need to understand where we're actually going.

What understanding will students need before they can get there?

Once I know the destination, I can go back to the beginning. What do students need to understand first? What prior knowledge might they be bringing with them? What misconceptions might get in the way? What foundation needs to be there before they're ready to move forward?

I used to think about planning mostly in terms of what I was going to teach next. Now I spend much more time thinking about what students need in order to get there.

What instructional decisions will move students toward that learning?

Now that I've laid out the learning progression from beginning to end, I can start to think about the journey. What should I model? Where will students need support? When can I begin releasing some of that support? What activities, strategies, grouping, pacing, or assessment will help move their learning forward?

I know where we're going. I've thought about where students may need to begin. Now I can make intentional decisions about how we're going to move from one to the other.

Looking Ahead

Understanding how to answer these questions didn't happen overnight. It came from years of teaching, mentoring, studying instructional design, and reflecting on my own practice.

Little by little, my thinking began to change. Instead of collecting more strategies, I became more interested in understanding the thinking behind the decisions we make as educators.

That thinking eventually led me to create the Phased Mastery Framework, which is built around instructional questions that help us slow down and think more intentionally about the decisions we're making.

In Closing

Before you plan your next lesson, pause for just a moment.

Ask yourself: What am I actually trying to teach?

It seems like such a simple question, but I've found that some of the biggest shifts in teaching don't begin with learning a new strategy. They begin by asking a better question about what we are already doing.

Kallie Ash

Founder, Phased Mastery