Lesson Internalization: How Coteach Helps You Make Curriculum Your Own

Lesson internalization has been getting a lot of attention lately—but what does it really mean for your classroom practice?

At its core, internalization means knowing a lesson so deeply that you can adapt it to meet your students exactly where they are. When you've truly internalized a lesson, you can make confident facilitation decisions and customize materials with targeted scaffolds or mini-lessons—all without compromising the rigor that makes high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) effective.

The Power of Starting with Quality

Starting with high-quality curriculum is essential—it frees you from spending countless hours developing content from scratch, allowing you to focus your expertise on how to make great materials work for your specific students.

But that said: customizing content can be challenging and time-consuming. How can you be sure which supports your students truly need? This is where Coteach can help!

Internalization in Action

Ready to apply the principles of lesson internalization? Here's how to get started:

1. Identify the standards-aligned learning targets. Ask yourself (or Coteach!): "What are students learning today?" or "How does each activity connect to these targets?"

2. Do the math yourself first. Put on your "student hat" and work through the problems. This helps you understand what success looks like, anticipate misconceptions, and identify the foundational skills students will need.

3. Analyze each lesson activity by considering:

   • What does complete understanding look like in student responses?

   • How might partial understanding appear?

   • What procedural knowledge do students need to access the activities?

Pro tip: Ask Coteach these questions and compare its responses with your own thinking for additional perspective!

Let Coteach Support Your Internalization

With these fundamentals in mind, you can prompt Coteach to develop targeted supports for your students. Try asking Coteach to:

"Design a 'just-in-time' mini-lesson that reinforces the prerequisite skills needed for today's activities."

"Create practice problems that build the procedural fluency my students need for this lesson."

"Develop a graphic organizer that helps students chunk their thinking for success with this activity."

Remember—you're the expert in your classroom, and Coteach is designed to amplify your expertise, not replace it. Through thoughtful collaboration, you can ensure every student has access to rich, grade-level content.

Ready to deepen your internalization practice? Head to Coteach now!

Stay tuned for our next blog post where we'll explore another powerful way to apply internalization principles to customize curriculum for your students.