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EDUCATORS TOGETHER

The Collaborative Power

of California Educators Together!

California Educators Together (CaET) is a community of practice designed to provide educators, administrators, specialists, and state program leads a common space to communicate, share strategies, and access resources. In collaboration with the California Department of Education and the CDE Foundation, the platform provides:

Statewide Programs: A wide array of program resources, support systems, and statewide initiatives

Collaboration: Group tools help local teams collaboratively develop and share learning materials and resources

Learning Resources: Classroom ready materials from high-quality providers free for educators to blend with their own practices

How can educators get involved?

California educators can join our platform to access thousands of select learning resources, while also engaging in statewide subject and grade level cohorts of peers. You can also contribute your own high-quality lessons to be shared with educators across California!

Why should educators get involved?

The process of collaborative lesson sharing helps educators to strengthen pedagogy, uncover blind spots, address biases, and ensure students have access to high-quality content.

What lessons should educators upload to the CaET platform?

We have provided this CaET Lesson Plan Rubric to guide educators as they contribute lessons to the platform. Developed with current research and the feedback from K-12 leaders and educators, including 8 of the 11 California County Superintendents (CCSESA) regions, the rubric guides the process of creating and curating high-quality lessons.

Each lesson on the platform is vetted by educators who are trained to use this rubric in the vetting process. The rubric may also be applied to longer lesson sequences, units, and project based learning. The rubric is not a comprehensive curriculum evaluation tool and should not be confused for use with textbooks, year-long curriculum, or educational material outside the CaET platform.

Leadership Support: Resources, programs, and strategies to guide leadership teams in promoting educator excellence & student success

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The CaET Lesson Plan Submission Process

How is the rubric designed?

The CaET Lesson Plan Rubric is designed in a “single point rubric” style to ensure the lesson vetted can maintain minimum quality standards. Feedback in the “Areas of Improvement” column must be remedied before the lesson is approved as a public resource. The “Evidence of Meeting Criteria” column includes feedback identifying specific qualifying lesson features.

What is the process for submitting lessons?

The CaET platform welcomes instructional materials from educators across the state. While the CaET Lesson Plan Rubric should guide all submissions to the platform, validation is not required for materials to be uploaded for private use by the user.

How does a lesson get approved as high-quality and shared across California?

The lesson must be submitted for evaluation by one of our trained educators to receive the high-quality designation. Before a lesson is reviewed by the validation committee, the submitter must ensure that it incorporates the key components of the CaET Lesson Plan Rubric including:

Grade-level content standards
Strategies to support English Learners
Equity-driven lens that…

Honors learner variability
Respects students and communities

What happens after the screening criteria has been met?

The lesson is sent to the validation committee. Validation committee member(s) will review the lesson to determine if there is sufficient evidence that the lesson meets all criteria outlined in the CaET Lesson Plan Rubric.

If a lesson does not meet some criteria, it will be returned to the submitter to make recommended changes. Then, it may be resubmitted to earn lesson plan approval.
If a submitter does not want to make changes to receive the validation, they will still be able to upload the lesson as a standard resource to the platform for private use.

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The CaET platform aims to honor students and their communities by promoting equity-driven instructional practices. The CaET lesson rubric is intentionally designed through the lens of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and English Language Development (ELD). In response to California’s diverse student populations, we infuse these principles and strategies within each component of the CaET initiative to better advocate for learner equity and inclusion.

Learn more about how UDL and ELD supports equity-focused, inclusive learning environments, and informs the instructional design of high-quality lesson plans found available on CaET.

On Integrated English Language Development (ELD)
In California, English learners at all proficiency levels and at all ages require both Integrated ELD and specialized attention to their particular language learning needs, also known as Designated ELD. CaET advocates for these principles by: ensuring lessons are focused on state-adopted ELD standards to assist in the development of English language skills necessary for academic content learning, designing evidence-based research lessons and using scaffolded strategies to support English learners at all levels of proficiency.

On Universal Design of Learning (UDL)
The Universal Design of Learning (UDL) is a framework that aims to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all students based on the scientific insights into how humans learn. UDL is a crucial tool for achieving the CDE goal to ensure high-quality instruction meets the needs of every student. CaET integrates UDL by: considering the research-based strategies of engagement, representation, and action/expression that support learner variability so all students can access and engage in meaningful, challenging, learning opportunities.

For more guidance, please review the following resources:

English Language Development Standard Resources

California Department of Education MTSS & UDL

Universal Design for Learning

An Equity Lens Towards Lesson Development

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Improvement Area	Criteria Each criterion must be met by at least one indicator in each row.	Criteria Evidence
	Content is aligned to appropriate standards and relevant skills (1) → Enacts grade level standards and developmentally appropriate practices, and is scaffolded to allow all students to gain exposure (1.1) Incorporates English Language Development standards and supports the linguistic demands of the content (1.2) Shares transparent measures of success with students (1.3)
	Content and delivery intentionally emphasizes language-rich learning (2) → Encourages students to actively engage in producing language and interacting as major elements of learning (2.1) Integrates language and literacy strategies with content design (2.2)
	Learning environment and culture are affirming, inclusive, and equitable (3) → Employs social emotional learning strategies (3.1) Supports and/or explicitly instructs executive functioning skills (3.2) Classroom arrangement encourages inclusion, collaboration, and autonomy (3.3) Student identity is affirmed, respected, and included in design (3.4)
	Content and delivery honors student experiences (4) → Connects to students’ prior knowledge (4.1) Honors students’ funds of knowledge including interests, experiences, languages, backgrounds, and cultures (4.2) Engages learning outside of the classroom and allows for application to new and complex situations (4.3)
	Content design is inclusive and considers student variability (5) → Builds on student skills and interests, and is developmentally appropriate (5.1) Responsibly leverages technology and other resources to enable access for unique student needs (5.2) Incorporates integrated English Language Development strategies (5.3) Lesson design includes strategies to minimize barriers to learning while leveraging students’ assets (5.4)
	Instructional design and delivery promotes expert learning (6) → Learners are purposeful and motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, and strategic and goal-directed (6.1) Provides opportunities for students to choose how to demonstrate their learning (6.2) Provides opportunities for student thinking to be heard and valued (6.3) Provides opportunities for students to develop and deepen their 21st century skills via inquiry-based learning strategies including collaboration through thoughtful student grouping, communication, critical thinking, and creativity (6.4)
	Student learning is assessed to guide instruction (7) → Formative assessment is embedded throughout the lesson (7.1) Summative assessment is used as appropriate to determine mastery (7.2) Assessment types vary to allow student choice in mastery demonstration (7.3) Assessments are differentiated to accommodate language proficiency levels and student variability (7.4) Assessment goals are stated firmly with a flexible means of achievement (7.5) Students are provided opportunities to monitor progress and adjust goals (7.6)
	Other feedback (discretionary) (8) → Identify additional evidence of this lesson meeting criteria or areas of improvement (8.1) Consider grade level appropriateness of the resources, content, and context utilized in the lesson plan (8.2)

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Inclusive, equitable learning experiences incorporate structures meeting the needs of diverse learners. The structure of the lesson must be aligned with its purpose and objectives. Following are examples and non-examples of what it looks like to align the lesson structure to the goals of student-centered learning.

Check out this CaET lesson example!

Elementary (English Language Arts / Literacy) Lesson Structures :
Students write an informative piece about the sun after exploring content through an inquiry-based approach such as brainstorming, asking questions, organizing, and sharing their ideas through collaboration (W.1.2). Students construct and deliver a persuasive speech that incorporates evidence to support their argument with developmentally appropriate English Language Development scaffolds provided (W.4.2) [Non-Example] An ELA / Literacy lesson asks students to conduct research on a provided topic using an explicit direct instructional model with no scaffolds for English Language Development and learner variability (SL.4.4). [Non-example] Students write an informative piece about the sun using text evidence with no particular forms of scaffold after receiving direct instruction on the topic from the teacher (W.1.2).
Middle School (Math) Lesson Structures:
A geometry lesson asking students to describe figures that result from slicing a 3D solid (7GA3) by looking for and making use of structure (MP7) uses an inquiry-based design. A geometry lesson teaching students to use protractors and ruler to construct triangles (7GA2) uses an explicit direct instructional design to coach students in those skills. [Non-Example] A geometry lesson that aims to teach students to calculate lengths and areas from scale drawings (7GA1) uses an inquiry-based design that does not formalize the process of computation. [Non-Example] A geometry lesson requiring students to verify experimentally the properties of rotations (8GA1) using an explicit direct instructional model that does not provide student choice or opportunity to experiment.
High School (Social Studies / History) Lesson Structures:
An 11th grade US History lesson asking students to explore FDR’s Four Freedoms (11.7.4) by first reading & discussing with a peer, and illustrating mastery by explaining the four freedoms using a medium of their choice (written, verbal, or visual). A 12th grade Government lesson (12.1.6) asking students to collaborate in their small groups to provide 3 examples of how the Bill of Rights limits the power of the Federal Government. [Non-Example] An 11th grade US History Lesson requiring students to explain FDR’s Four Freedoms (11.7.4) speech after receiving direct explicit instruction from the teacher. [Non-Example] A 12th grade Government lesson requiring students to write an essay explaining how the Bill of Rights limits the power of the Federal Government, using information from the textbook.

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