Structuring Lessons with Learning Goals in Mind

Structuring your classroom lessons lays the groundwork for effective teaching. So when it comes to lesson planning, what's the difference between standards and objectives? How can teachers make the purpose of each lesson clear to their students? How tightly should lessons be structured to ensure students reach targeted learning goals? And when a lesson plan, although promising on paper, fails to work in practice, what strategies can teachers use to salvage the lesson?

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600 to 1,000-word essays on the theme "Structuring Lessons with Learning Goals in Mind."

This issue welcomes articles that show how teachers help students grasp the purpose behind a lesson, make lesson content relevant to students, and develop classroom activities that allow students to show both content mastery and understanding of the lesson's goals.

Guidelines for submissions are here. Please send us your submissions by September 9, 2011.