Execute Rigor and Personalization

What it means:

Execute rigorous lessons aligned with the curriculum, personalizing and differentiating instruction for highly-engaging, high-growth learning.

More Detail

Executing rigorous, personalized lessons for mastery and growth includes the following:

Ensure that all students have ambitious learning goals
- Set challenging, measurable goals, overall and with each student
- Encourage students to work hard toward goals

Plan and teach lessons aligned with curriculum and student needs
- Assess students before lessons with diagnostics
- Set sequential learning targets to and well beyond standards
- Continue developing and editing engaging lesson plans that align both with curriculum/standards and what students know
- Include in lesson plans: frequent checks for understanding, personalization/differentiation, re-teaching, and acceleration
- Differentiate instruction for students at different learning levels
- Include assignments that allow any student to advance by choice
- Use culturally and personally relevant activities
- Script out higher-order questions and correct answers
- Incorporate digital instruction wisely

Engage students deeply in the learning process
- Incorporate student-centered teaching models, inquiry, and discussion
- Deepen understanding via evidence and teamwork

See a one-page Instructional Excellence Summary covering all the key elements.

Videos—For Teachers & Multi-Classroom Leaders

Watch these short videos of educators discussing and demonstrating the elements of Execute Rigor and Personalization, organized by action:

Ensure that all students have ambitious learning goals

Help Students Internalize and Reach
Goals

Master Reach Teacher Jimmel Williams explains
how students internalize their learning goals,
monitoring themselves and learning how to learn.

Plan and teach lessons aligned with curriculum and student needs

Differentiate Without Excluding
Lowest Students

MCL Ellen Rayburn explains how struggling
students get both the remediation they need
and instruction to match their grade level.

Maintain Rigor While Personalizing
to Ability Level

MCL Hadley Moore focuses on choosing
appropriately challenging work for each student,
always selecting for rigor and engagement.

A Concept-Driven Class Allows
Personalization

Creating a concept-driven class allows students to
go as deep as they like, Blended-Learning Teacher
Scott Nolt says.

Small Groups Personalize
Elementary Instruction

Using personalized lessons anchored by
small-group teaching is a key to success,
MCL Stephanie Roper explains.

Combine Whole-Group, Small-Group,
Independent Work

Mix whole-group, small-group, and independent
instruction to reach all students’ needs, MCL
Tonya Reaves says.

Using Station Rotations to
Personalize Learning

Rotating students through small-group,
differentiated learning stations allows for
personalized instruction, MCL Kathryn Smith says.

Incorporate digital instruction wisely

When using technology in the classroom, have a
goal and objective in mind, MCL Amber Hines says.

Engage students deeply in the learning process

To Engage Students, Use Broad Range
of Resources Technology Offers

Target a student’s interests to make learning
relevant and engaging, MCL Amber Hines says.

Create Growth Mindset, Try-Again
Atmosphere

Help students continue to learn by allowing them
to fail, Blended-Learning Teacher Scott Nolt says.

Keep Instruction Fun and Culturally
Relevant

To create lifelong learners, don’t forget fun, and
make instruction relevant to your students’
lives, MCL Bri Waddell says.

Incorporate student-centered
teaching models

Master Reach Teacher Jimmel Williams leads
his class in a geometry routine to help students
learn the math by “speaking the math.”

Discussion Questions

Use these discussion questions to help guide your instructional team through the elements of Execute Rigor and Personalization:

Which actions in this element of instructional excellence are strengths for you or your team?
Which actions in this element of instructional excellence are weaknesses for you or your team? Think about actions you never take, fail to take as often as needed, or do not take as well as needed to achieve strong learning growth consistently.
What one to three specific changes will you or your team make to use your strengths more often or more consistently and improve weaknesses in the coming months?
Make a brief action plan with specific goals, roles, and time by which you will make specific changes!
Did your changes produce better learning results? If so, keep them. If not, think again about what other changes to make!

Study Guide

See this printable study guide with discussion questions and real examples from educators:

For Multi-Classroom Leaders—Key Element of Instructional Excellence: Execute Rigor and Personalization [pdf]

Other Developmental Resources

See the following developmental resources, provided by other organizations, related to the elements of Execute Rigor and Personalization:

General Resources: Execute rigorous, personalized lessons for mastery and growth

Quick Resources:

Match Mini: Running A Quality Lesson (quick tutorial)

Teaching Channel, New Teacher Survival Guide: Planning (video & tools)

Teaching Channel: Deeper Learning Video Series (videos & tools)

ISTE: Turn Your Classroom into a Personalized Learning Environment (short article)

Success Academies Education Institute: Literacy Curriculum for K-8 (tools, e-courses)

Ensure all students have ambitious learning goals

Papers & Books:

Teaching As Leadership: The Highly Effective Teacher’s Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap (book)

Set challenging, measurable goals, overall and with each student

Quick Resources:

Edutopia: SMART Goal Setting With Your Students (short article)

Papers & Books:

The Power of SMART Goals: Using Goals to Improve Student Learning (book)

Teach Like a Champion, Field Guide 2.0 (book)

Teaching As Leadership: The Highly Effective Teacher’s Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap (book)

Encourage students to work hard toward goals

Quick Resources:

Match Mini: Generating Student Effort (quick tutorial)

KQED/MindShift: Challenging Work is Essential To Deep, Meaningful Learning (short article)

Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov’s Field Notes: Rue Ratray: Frustration and Rigor, Part 1 (blog)

Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov’s Field Notes: Rue Ratray on Rigor, Frustration & The Monomyth (blog)

Papers & Books:

Teach Like a Champion, Field Guide 2.0 (book)

Teaching As Leadership: The Highly Effective Teacher’s Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap (book)

Plan and teach lessons aligned with curriculum and student needs

Quick Resources:

Edreports.org: Independent reviews of instructional materials by educators

Teaching Channel: Aligning Curriculum (video)

Teach Like a Champion: Designing Lesson Materials for Success, Implement Double Planning (guide & template)

Papers & Books:

Lesson Planning for Effective Learning (book)

Where Great Teaching Begins: Planning for Student Thinking (book)

Teaching As Leadership: The Highly Effective Teacher’s Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap (book)

Assess students before lessons with diagnostics

Quick Resources:

American Psychology Association: How Do My Students Think: Diagnosing Student Thinking, Understanding misperceptions is a key early step (framework)

Spotlight On: Activating Prior Knowledge

Teaching Channel: Preparing Learners, Activating Prior Knowledge (video)

Mindful Learning 101 Proven Strategies for Student and Teacher Success, Beginning With What Students Know: The Role of Prior Knowledge in Learning (book excerpt with templates)

Papers & Books:

Educational Leadership: Informative Assessment, Learning to Love Assessment (article)

Set sequential learning targets to and well beyond standards

Quick Resources:

Match Mini: Designing A Target Task (quick tutorial)

ACSD, Educational Leadership: Knowing Your Learning Target (short article)

Teaching Channel: SWBAT Communicating Learning Goals (video)

Papers & Books:

ASCD: Learning Targets: A Theory of Action (book)

ASCD: Learning Targets, Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today’s Lesson (book)

ASCD: The Purposeful Classroom: How to Structure Lessons with Learning Goals in Mind (book)

Continue developing and editing engaging lesson plans that align both with curriculum/standards and what students know

Quick Resources:

Match Mini: Our Planning Framework & Running a Quality Lesson (quick tutorials)

Houston ISD: Develop Effective Lesson Plans (toolkit with video)

KIPP: Conceptual Understanding Lesson Plan Exemplar (tool)

Papers & Books:

ACSD: The Art and Science of Teaching (book)

Include in lesson plans: frequent checks for understanding, personalization/differentiation, re-teaching, and acceleration

Spotlight On: Personalization / Differentiation

RAND: Personalized Learning: The Latest Buzz in Classroom Instruction (short article)

Understood.org, Partnership with 15 nonprofit partners including National Center for Learning Disabilities (website, tools, frameworks, short articles, etc.)

Learner Positioning Systems, Digital Promise (tools)

Spotlight On: Check for Understanding & Re-teaching

The Teacher Toolkit: Checks for Understanding (videos & tools)

KIPP: How Do I Effectively Check for Understanding? (blog)

Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov’s Field Notes: Check For Understanding (video)

Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov’s Field Notes: Katie Butrie’s Show Call & The ‘Invisible Hand’: A Guest Post By Joaquin Hernandez (video)

Spotlight On: Cold Calling

Match Mini: The Case for Cold Calling (quick tutorial)

Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov’s Field Notes: Cold Call is Inclusive (blog)

Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov’s Field Notes: Two Clips for Those Who Want to Master the Cold Call Technique (video)

Teach Like a Champion, Grab-n-Go Resources: Analyze and Plan Cold Call Prompts Planning Activity (tool)

Spotlight On: Wait Time