How to Plan Rigorous Instruction

If we want all our students to become better thinkers and learners, we must design rigorous learning experiences that go beyond helping them simply master standards.

In this guide, Robyn R. Jackson takes you step by step through the process of planning rigorous instruction—what great teachers do to ensure students have a learning destination that's worth working toward and that the path they take to get there will help them pass the big tests and become engaged learners, effective problem solvers, and critical thinkers. Here, you'll learn how to

* Create a rigorous unit assessment to guide your instruction and ensure standards mastery.

* Select rigorous learning materials by examining the type of thinking you want students to engage in and the type of understanding you want them to acquire.

* Choose rigorous instructional strategies by looking at ways to help students grasp new content and acquire new skills, apply what they are learning in a meaningful way, use thinking processes to synthesize new understandings, and adapt these understandings to new contexts across disciplines.

* Create a rigorous learning unit, tailored to your standards and classroom content, and to the students you teach.

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What we call "motivation" in school is really a decision students make to invest in our classrooms. It's our responsibility to show students the value of investment and guide them toward behaviors that will support learning.

In this guide, Robyn R. Jackson takes you step by step through the process of motivating reluctant learners what great teachers do instead of relying on elaborate rewards systems or creative tricks to reach students who actively or passively resist investing themselves in the classroom. Here, you'll learn how to

* Identify the classroom investments to ask for by considering the motivated behaviors you most want to see and ensuring that what you're asking for is specific, meaningful, observable, realistic, worth the effort, and small.

* Create a classroom worth investing in by removing "demotivating" practice- and procedure-based barriers and giving students more opportunities for autonomy.

* Understand and address students' resistance and respond with instructional strategies that minimize perceived risk and maximize immediate benefits.

* Ask for and shape an investment by reaching out to students in a nonconfrontational way and providing a clear path toward motivated behavior.

* Create a motivation plan that's tailored to the students you teach and designed to be effective in the long run.

About the series

Every teacher can become a master teacher with the right kind of practice and support. Each how-to guide in the Mastering the Principles of Great Teaching series focuses on one of the seven mastery principles introduced in Robyn R. Jackson's best-selling Never Work Harder Than Your Students. The guides' self-assessments, worksheets, planning templates, process outlines, checklists, links to online resources, suggested activities, and prompts for reflection help teachers of all experience levels apply the principles to address everyday classroom challenges and build their overall mastery mindset.