Obviously as teachers, a great deal of time and thought goes into lesson planning, content creation, and student assessment, but what does planning and collaboration look like when it is student centered? In order to keep the focus on students, there are certain things that need to be done during planning and team collaboration time to ensure student-centered instruction during lesson delivery time.

Any planning session or collaboration time must start with a clear understanding of not only what will be accomplished but also how the result will benefit students. Clear expectations from everyone on the focus of the time needs to begin with a clear tie to what students need to know. Stating or reviewing learning standards that will be taught (and thus discussed) is an essential part of keeping collaboration and discussion on point and directed toward student learning. These standards should include those currently being taught and those upcoming in lessons before the next planning time. Review of recent student formative assessment data should guide discussion on the effectiveness of previous and current lessons in achieving mastery of learning targets for most students and should drive the planning going forward toward reteaching or moving forward to another standard. Collaborative discussion needs to center on this data and all collaborative decisions relating to next steps should flow from these results.  Further resource creation or assessment planning should not occur until this current reality is established as a basis for upcoming lessons. Only then will lessons be based on student needs and learning centered around students.

Once a firm picture of student reality has been established for the current learning standards, resources can be created or evaluated.  Resources should be carefully matched to the standards being taught to ensure that the learning target is clear and that the resource is focused on this learning target. A common mistake educators make is to find a resource and identify which learning target or targets it addresses. This is a backwards approach. In planning, a teacher should know the target first and then find lesson resources to match the target. The Internet can be an excellent source for finding these resources as keywords from the standard can often be searched that will lead to resources for teaching it. Resources should also be chosen based on previous teaching and assessment and what is known about the current learning level of students as well as possible ties to previous standards. When searching for  or creating resources, current student learning reality must play a part.

Along with other planning, student centered planning must also include a plan to assess learning that will be used in the next planning cycle to determine current learning reality. These assessments must be planned along with the lesson and carefully crafted to be short and concise, while checking students’ knowledge of standards. If more than one teacher will be using these formative assessments, all teachers should participate in the creation process so that results can be compared later to determine the most effective instructional techniques. These common formative assessments will become the center of the next collaborative session in determining student learning. This cycle keeps the whole process centered on the student and students’ mastery of targeted learning goals.

Finally, collaborative planning should always include time for discussions on student intervention. These discussions include how to respond to struggling students during presentation of the lesson as well as how to respond to students whose assessment does not indicate an adequate understanding of the standard. Additional resources might be considered or alternate intervention time considered or even planned for struggling learners. This planning time could also include discussion of areas where students typically struggle and possible ways to prevent these issues or respond to them.

By dividing planning sessions into carefully thought out time blocks devoted to alignment to standards, evaluation of current learning reality, creation of aligned resources, and assessment creation and review, planning time can be made more efficient and concise while at the same time remaining focused on student learning.