Domain 1:

Emphasis placed on intentional, research-informed lesson design that meets diverse learners' needs and leads to meaningful outcomes.

Domain 2:

High-impact instruction that thrives in classrooms where students feel respected, safe, and motivated to engage deeply with content.

Domain 3:

Directly reflects on how high-impact instruction and TESS stress active engagement, ongoing assessments, and instructional agility.

Domain 4:

Both frameworks highlight reflection, collaboration, and continuous learning to be essential to improving student outcomes.

These connections turn the TESS rubric from evaluation into everyday effective teaching.

Example questions:

What standards or learning objectives am I targeting?, What are more students' strengths, needs, and learning styles, How will I scaffold instruction to gradually release responsibility to students? How will I know if my students are learning during the lesson (formative assessment)? Did my instructional choices lead to the desired student outcomes?

What prior knowledge do students have regarding this standard/subject? Where is this going? What is critical for them to know when they leave my grade? Are there any holes that I need to fill? How am I going to assess them? How will they be assessed at the state level?

There are so many questions to be considered when designing instruction. You also have to consider the process of what do they know, what will this lesson teach them, what are they learning next?

What standard is guiding my lesson?

What is my objective? How will I communicate my objective?

What do my students already know?

How do my activities align with my goal?

How will all of my students be challenged and supported during my lesson?

What do I want to them to be able to do with this learning? How can I reach ALL my learners? What questions can I ask to promote optimal engagement?

How will I structure this lesson? What do I need to provide the students to activate inquiry in them? What will I do if this doesn't work?

1) Carefully planned instruction. Collaboration, research, and planning based on students' needs have been in place to lay out bell to bell high-level learning to meet the learning needs of all students in the classroom.

2) Engaging lessons

Students are integrated in the learning process. They are listening, practicing, collaborating, writing, and discussing. All of these elements are important in order to ensure that all students are learning at high levels.

3) Reflection

Teachers are giving quality CFAs and CSAs that measure precisely the proficiency levels of students in order to plan, create, and execute lessons effectively.

You can ask yourself questions like "does my material support my desired instructional outcomes?"

"Am I providing TIMELY feedback or am I giving the students feedback so late they can't utilize any of it?"

When working with novice teachers these are tools we can use to guide them towards higher levels of efficacy and outcome.

What requisite skills do the students have that contribute to that learning target?

What requisite skills are the students weak in that will hamper their progress?

Does my material lead us towards the desired out come?

Do I understand the material well enough for it to be beneficial to my students?

How do I pace the material so that students stay engage but not overwhelmed?

How can I break apart material to teach it more efficiently?

High-Impact Instruction elements closely align with the Arkansas TESS Rubric by emphasizing intentional planning, student engagement, and formative assessment. For example, learning targets in HII connect directly to TESS 3a (Communicating with Students) because they clarify expectations and success criteria. Similarly, formative assessment strategies align with TESS 3d (Using Assessment in Instruction) as teachers gather and respond to student evidence in real time. Both frameworks highlight the importance of engaging all learners (TESS 3c) and using data and reflection (Domain 4) to refine practice. Together, HII and TESS create a cohesive roadmap for effective teaching focused on clarity, engagement, and responsiveness.

• What are the essential learning targets students must master?

• How will I know if students are learning throughout the lesson?

• What strategies will best engage all learners and support diverse needs?

• How can I connect today’s learning to prior knowledge and future concepts?

• What evidence will demonstrate student understanding and growth?

• How will I adjust instruction based on student responses and formative data?

High Quality Instruction is overall planning, pre-problem solving, and pre-planning for all areas of student learning. We plan for student outcomes that are intended, welcomed, and of high expectations. I specifically appreciated the section where the speaker said that we know that the learning is transferred from the teacher to students when we see the impact.

-What prior knowledge do I need to review or clear up before they are able to understand this objective?

-How am I going to assess my students?

-How do I know that students have mastered the standard?

-What resources/strategies am I going to use to deliver the content?

-How am I going to visualize/diagram concepts for my students?

-How am I going to engage students on all levels of learning?

What do I want my students to learn from these standards? They unpack the standards and sequence them in order to fully understand exactly what the student is expected to learn.

How am I going to present this content in a real, meaningful, impactful method in order to facilitate interest and understanding?

What specific misconceptions do I need to address?

What does the content look like as I am presenting that to the students?

What barriers to success do I need to plan for in order for my students to be successful?

What individual student needs do I need to address?

How can I present this content with high expectations, but in a manner that all student abilities are met?

High impact instruction and Tess indicators go together in way that highly effective teaching and planning happens with intentionality of the goals and standards for excellence. The step forward is when student input and collaboration is included in this. In order for them to take part in their learning and progress monitoring of their learing; self-reflection and goals to move forward students should be a part of that process.

*How will I respond?

*What prior knowledge do they need to have before starting this lesson?

*How will I present this information?

*What engagement stratgies can I use to best get this information across

*When will be the best time to begin "release".

*What activity/practicie will I use to begin that procerss.

*How will I know they know what I want them to know?

*How will I assess their knowledge?

Using TESS alongside high impact instruction provides a measurable source to reflect on effectiveness and make improvements/adjustments to foster student learning and growth. This can be accomplished by making sure to: 

• Provide clear learning objectives/goals and success criteria

• Provide clear procedures and routines

• Provide timely feedback to students 

• use evidence based instructional strategies

• Use formative and summative assessment to adjust instruction to student needs 

• Collaborate with colleagues and reflect on teaching practices and learning outcomes

There are several connections between high impact instructional elements and the Arkansas TESS Rubric. From teachers identifying and communicating clear learning objectives, direct instruction, modeling, scaffolding, and formative assessment, TESS gives us an expected level or goal to strive to achieve.

What is the learning target? Does it align with standards? How will I communicate the learning target? Do the activities reinforce the learning target? Can students state the learning target? What assessments will be used to determine if students met the learning target?

2- How will I access the student's prior knowledge and or make connections to past learning?

3- How will I make sure that every student (different backgound and learning abilities) learns the material being taught?

• Independent, intentional partners/groups/whole class

• Scaffolding/Differentiation

  
  

4- How will students demonstrate their learning in a meaningful way?

1. What do we want students to learn?

2. How will we know if and when they have learned it?

3. What will we do if they haven't learned it?

4. How will we respond when they already know it?

-What is the learning goal of the standard?

-How will I measure student success of mastering the learning goal?

-How can I make real life connections and applications to the standard?

-What activities can I do to make students connect to the learning objective?

-How will I reflect on student success?

• What are students going to produce or work on?

• What type of thinking will students engage in?

• What is the criteria for success and how can that be communicated?

• What background knowledge do students already have?

• Clear and Objectives and Outcomes

  • TESS Connection: 1c - Setting Instructional Outcomes: This component directly addresses the need for rigorous learning goals that reflect academic standards.

• Standards-Aligned Planning & Scaffolding

  • TESS Connection: 1a - Demonstrating Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy: This requires unit plans and practice to reflect solid knowledge of the standards and actively build on prior knowledge.

  • TESS Connection: 1e - Designing Coherent Instruction: This focuses on utilizing a progression of learning aligned to instructional outcomes and engaging students in rigorous grade-level learning.

• Data-Driven Instruction and Student Success Tracking

  • TESS Connection: 1f - Designing Student Assessments: This component mandates that assessment results are used to plan for future instruction, extension and/or intervention.

• Knowing the Learner

  • TESS Connection: 1b - Demonstrating Knowledge of Students: An effective teacher actively seeks and attains knowledge of all students' backgrounds and interests.

• Relationship Building and Respect

  • TESS Connection: 2a - Creating an Environment of Respect and Rapport: An effective classroom requires interactions between the teacher and all students, as well as among students, to be polite and respectful.

• Clear Expectations and Ownership of Learning

  • TESS Connection: 2b - Establishing a Culture for Learning: This ensures that grade level learning expectations exist for all students and, at the highest level, that students can articulate the steps for progressing in the standard, indicating student ownership over the learning process.

Using High Impart Instruciton and the Arkansas TESS Rubric will allow teachers to check that each step of their planning is aligned with being effective in the classroom. These resources are providing clear directions but also allows teachers to see what each level of student acheivement looks like.

How can I create higher level thinking questions to include in the lesson?

What parts of the lesson might need some clarifications or more explanation for students?

What background knowledge do my students need for this lesson?

How can I incorporate real life examples into my lesson?

Both of these line up with each other. I was able to match each component on the high impact instruction elements to the TESS rubric. All of these components fell into domains 1-3. The TESS rubric gives you more detail on how to make sure these components are in your classroom and a part of each lesson.

Planning:

Clear standards based objective (1c, 1d)

Identified clear measurement of criteria (1f, 3a)

Activities and materials aligned to learning objective (1d)

High order questions that engage students (3c)

Clear plan that ensure academic growth (3d, 3e)

Delivery:

Learning goal clearly communicated to students (1c, 3f)

Communicate clear measurement criteria (1f, 3a)

Align activities and materials to learning objective (1d)

Student engagement and interaction around high order questions (3c)

Differentiation for all learners (1a, ac)

Effective classroom management (2c, 2d, 2e)

What is the learning goal of the lesson? How will I communicate this to students?

What is the measurement criteria for my assessment? How will I communicate this to students?

Do the lesson materials and activities used align to the goal of the lesson?

Does the lesson engage all students in higher order questions and thinking?

Are all students supported during the lesson?Are all students challenged during the lesson? Are all students ensured to master the learning goal?

What are my classroom management procedures, routines, and transitions? How will they be demonstrated during this lesson? What do I need to prepare to make these happen effectively?

The TESS Rubric indicates teachers should demonstrate solid knowledge of grade level standards as well as background information of students' learning and interests that can influence strategies he or she may use when designing instruction. TESS also emphasizes teachers use meaningful data to drive instruction and planning, using scaffolding activities when necessary so that all students will be able to attain specified achievement goals.

-What prior knowledge should students have when coming into the lesson that will be important to build upon?

-Are there common misconceptions that students frequently have about the topic? What assessment format would be best used to find this out?

-How long will each activity take and what are the achievement criteria or each?

-Are there opportunities for advanced learners to extend their learning?\

-What form of assessment should be used for the lesson? How will assessment data be shared with students? How can students use this information to set personal goals for learning?

-What materials are need for lesson? Are the needs of IEPs and 504s met?

I noticed that both high impact instruction elements gives an overview of how planning can impact students. The Arkansas TESS Rubric Descriptors gives a detailed look are each area. Each has a focus on students being involved. Its important that one has a knowledge of their students and how to engaged them with the learning, goal setting, assessments and reflections. The TESS rubric goes into great detail of the steps to have meaningful learning in the classroom.

-What are my learning targets?

-What are the state standards?

-Do my learning target match the state standards?

-Do I need to adjust the lesson to better match standards or to allow students to access prior knowledge?

-What questioning should I use with students?

-What is the instructional outcome of this lesson?

-How will I measure student progress in this lesson?

What is my success criteria?

-How will I communicate this criteria with students?