Lesson Plan Template for PBIS/MTSS

Student Lesson Plans

Teaching social-emotional skills (school-wide PBIS/MTSS Expectations) should follow the same effective strategies educators use for teaching academic skills. Teachers need to identify the objectives, begin with a hook or anticipatory set, and systematically lead students through an “I do, we do, you do” process. We also need to evaluate or asses if our learners met our objectives to the lesson.

We suggest using a Lesson Plan template for consistency when teaching Expectations in all locations. Our template is based on an example provided by Langland, S., Lewis-Palmer, T., & Sugai, G. (1998). The five sections are:

  1. List the skills/rules for this ​Expectation​ in this ​Location ​from Expectation Matrix/Poster

  2. List a rationale for teaching the behavior (Why is it important?).

  3. Identify examples and non-examples of the desired behavior (What would the behavior look/sound like? What would the behavior not look/sound like?).

  4. Practice/Role Play Activities.

  5. Provide opportunities for practice.

We recommend that schools create one lesson plan for each Expectation in each Location. Here is the rationale:

Each Expectation in each location typically includes 3-4 skills or rules for that location (classroom, hallway, etc.). If a single lesson plan was created for Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be Safe in the Classroom, that might encompass 12 or more rules/skills. Most teachers would never attempts to teach 12 objectives in a single academic lesson plan - so social-emotional lessons plans should follow the same logic.

A second reason for only teaching one expectation per lesson plan is for accountability. If discipline data shows that third grade students are being disrespectful in the cafeteria, ask third grade teachers to reteach Be Respectful in the Cafeteria lesson plan. There is no need to schedule a school-wide assembly or to even reteach all the expectations to third grade students.

Insight Blog text is an expert from the PBIS Tier 1 Manual (p.78) available from KOI Education, Amazon, or Applebooks.
All templates and examples are FREE on our Tier 1 Resources page.

 

Schedule Training for Staff & Students

Just as we would never assume that a student will learn the Periodic Table just because it is hung on the wall of the science classroom, we should also never assume that student will learn how to behave in school just because we post our ‘3 Be’s’ Poster with the words Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be Safe either. School PBIS/MTSS teams need to schedule training of the Expectation annually for staff and students. Schedule boosters after fall, winter, and spring breaks too! More details on scheduling training can be found in the PBIS Tier 1 Manual (p.80).

Staff

  • Training typically occurs before school begins. Teach staff how to use the lesson plans, were they can download the plans or accompanying videos, and the schedule of when/where training will take place for their grade level or department (yes, even high school teachers and students need training).

Students

  • Schedule who, what, when, where, and how training will occur.

  • Elementary schools typically use a ‘passport’ system where students travel to the different locations in the school to receive training (from the lesson plan) on how to follow the Expectations in that location - their passport is stamped when they complete a training. Share this schedule with teachers well in advance.

  • High schools often assign teaching the Expectation for different locations to specific periods of the day. For example: Period 1 on Monday, all teachers teach the Expectations in the classroom; Period 2 on Tuesday, all teachers teach the Expectations for the hallway; etc. See additional details in the PBIS Tier 1 Manual.

If you found this useful, consider signing up for our PBIS Training Academy or one of our Reboot, Re-Energizer, or Refresher workshops.

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