TPA Lesson Planning

Creating Lesson Plans: The TPA Way

            Typical response to the TPA lesson plan format is that it is too long, too complicated, and that no teacher in their right mind would spend 75 minutes trying to write a TPA lesson plan for a 50 minute class. I feel that this type of thinking has caused an egregious overlook of the important facets of the TPA.

            One of the things that the TPA format requires is a context for learning, which is incredibly important as a teacher to be aware of. Every year, each class will be full of different students that learn in different ways. The TPA format requires you to think about whom the students in the class are, how they best learn, and additional needs the teacher may need to consider. This is especially important in a highly diversified setting, and since the general population of America is very quickly growing more diverse, the numbers suggest that school settings will too. In addition to understanding the students, the TPA also asks what will impact the delivery of the lesson, which means that teachers must account for pacing, style of teaching, and management of a classroom. All of these things are very good features of the TPA.

            There is however one feature that I think is the best in the whole system and that is the formative assessment that occurs during the lesson. The TPA format asks teachers how they will judge student progress during the lesson, what they will be looking for in students, how they will monitor learning, and ways to use and provide feedback for students. Summative assessments at the end of a lesson or unit are important, but more important is being able to realize flaws in your lesson as they happen. In other words, the TPA encourages teachers to be actively participating the classroom as they teach their lessons so that they can make real time modifications to their lessons as they teach them. Being able to adjust moment-to-moment and period-to-period is essential for being a quality teacher.

            The point is that the TPA asks for a lot of really good things from teachers and they shouldn’t be ignored just because of the sometimes-tedious process of writing them.