Research Guides: Lesson Planning for Educators: Planning Standards

Importance of Standards

Standards are the foundation of effective teaching. They outline what students should know and be able to do at each grade level and in each subject area. These learning goals are developed at the state and national levels to promote consistency, equity, and high expectations for all learners.

When you use standards in your lesson planning, you’re doing more than meeting requirements, you’re ensuring that your instruction is:

Purposeful – every lesson has a clear goal tied to what students need to learn
Aligned – your objectives, activities, and assessments all connect to larger learning outcomes
Consistent – your instruction supports school, district, and statewide expectations
Scaffolded – standards build over time, helping students make progress from year to year

💡 Tip: Standards aren’t meant to restrict your creativity! They’re here to help you focus your instruction, differentiate for student needs, and set every learner up for success.

Pennsylvania State Standards

The Pennsylvania State Standards (also called the PA Core Standards) can be downloaded from their website and define what students should know and be able to do at each grade level in core subject areas like English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies.

Developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, these standards are designed to:

Ensure all students receive a high-quality, consistent education
Prepare students for college, career, and civic life
Support instructional planning and assessment for teachers across the state

As a preservice teacher at Cedar Crest College, you’ll use these standards to guide your lesson objectives, align your activities with grade-level expectations, and meet the requirements for your coursework and field experiences.

Use the PA Core Standards to:

Select appropriate learning goals for your lessons
Connect your instruction to state-mandated benchmarks
Ensure your planning supports student growth across grade levels

You can access the PA Standards through the Standards Aligned System (SAS), Pennsylvania’s official online curriculum and planning tool.

💡 Tip: Learn more about using SAS by exploring their Getting Started with SAS Help Desk Page!

🔍 Dive Deeper

Integrative STEM and STEAM Education for Real-Life Learning
Examines how K-12 education standards and innovative teacher professional development programs which emphasize transdisciplinary approaches to STEM and STEAM lead to the emergence of real-life education in schools. It explores how these approaches are not just about preparing students for the future, but engaging them in solving real-world problems, demonstrating how education can empower students to become active, innovative contributors to society.
Standards-Based Technology and Engineering Education
ISBN: 9789819957040

Focuses on how educators must understand the structure of the standards used and their alignment with educational programs at specific levels and contexts, both in the USA and internationally. It emphasizes that core standards should allow for deeper levels of understanding and engagement on the part of students, who should continue to revisit these core standards in increasingly sophisticated ways as they progress from Pre-K through Grade 12.

Did States' Adoption of More Rigorous Standards Lead to Improved Student Achievement? Evidence from a Comparative Interrupted Time Series Study of Standards-Based Reform
This study was designed to assess the effects of states' adoption of more rigorous standards as part of the current wave of standards-based reform on student achievement using comparative interrupted time series analyses based on state-level NAEP data from 1990 to 2017.
Leading Instructional Improvement in Elementary Science: State Science Coordinators' Sense-Making about the Next Generation Science Standards
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a reform effort "for states, by states," advances ambitious ideals for elementary science teaching, but the fate of these ideals will depend in part on the engagement of state science coordinators (SSCs). This article explores the responses of SSCs to NGSS in a purposeful sample of 18 US states.
Aligning English Language Proficiency Assessments to Standards: Conceptual and Technical Issues
Alignment between standards and assessments is a fundamental component of the larger effort to ensure appropriate and fair use of standards-based assessments and achievement of successful standards-based reform. This article focuses on conceptual and technical issues as well as potential strategies in evaluating alignment between large-scale, standardized English language proficiency assessments and English language proficiency standards in the U.S. K-12 education context.