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Madeline Hunter's Lesson Design (ITIP)

Madeline Hunter's lesson design, part of her Instructional Theory Into Practice (ITIP) programme, is a seven-element structure for direct instruction. It was widely adopted in US schools in the 1970s and 1980s and remains a common template for skills-based lessons.

7 phasesSession Flow
When to Use This Framework

When your sessions feel disjointed or participants lose focus

Your meetings or sessions need better pacing, clearer transitions, or more engaging sequences to keep participants engaged.

When teaching a well-defined procedure or skill that learners must perform correctly, such as a tool, a protocol or a technique.

The 7 Steps
Follow this sequence to apply Madeline Hunter's Lesson Design (ITIP)
1

Objectives

Decide exactly what learners should be able to do by the end. This steers every other choice in the session.

2

Standards

Make clear what good performance looks like and how it will be judged, so participants know the target.

3

Anticipatory set

A short hook that focuses attention and links to prior experience before new input begins.

4

Teaching (input, modelling, checking for understanding)

Present the content, demonstrate it, and check understanding before moving on, for example with quick questions or thumbs up.

5

Guided practice

Participants try the skill with the facilitator close by, giving feedback and correcting early.

6

Closure

Help learners pull together what they learned, ideally in their own words, to consolidate it.

7

Independent practice

Learners apply the skill on their own, within the session or afterwards, to build fluency and retention.

What You'll Achieve

Creates natural rhythm and momentum that keeps energy high throughout.

Use the seven elements as a sequence for a skills session where there is a clear right way to perform a task. Place checks for understanding and guided practice before any independent work.

Practical Tips
How to get the most out of this framework
  • 1
    Vary the pace between high and low energy activities
  • 2
    Use clear transitions between sections
  • 3
    Build complexity gradually throughout
  • 4
    End with actionable takeaways
Best For
  • Procedural and technical skills
  • Compliance and safety training
  • Novice learners
  • Teachers and trainers new to lesson planning
Key Principles
  • Teaching is a series of deliberate decisions
  • Check understanding before practice
  • Move from guided to independent practice
  • Make the objective and standard explicit
Watch Out For
  • Critics describe the model as mechanistic and overly prescriptive when used as a checklist for every lesson.
  • A Napa County follow-up study found little evidence that ITIP training improved student achievement.
  • Less suited to exploratory, open-ended or dialogic sessions.
Related Frameworks
Other Session Flow frameworks you might find useful
Kolb's Experiential LearningA four-stage cycle in which learning comes from transforming experience: people have an experience, reflect on it, form concepts and test them in new situations. Kolb built it on Dewey, Lewin and Piaget, and it is the standard reference for experience-based session design and debriefing.
BOPPPS ModelBOPPPS is a six-part lesson structure from the Canadian Instructional Skills Workshop: Bridge-in, Objectives, Pre-assessment, Participatory learning, Post-assessment and Summary. It gives any single session a clear opening, a checked starting point, an active middle and a verified close.
4Cs Map (Training from the Back of the Room, Sharon Bowman)The 4Cs is Sharon Bowman's instructional design and delivery map from the book Training from the Back of the Room. It moves learners from connecting to a topic, through short concept input and active practice, to their own conclusions and action plans, with the trainer acting as guide rather than lecturer.