Since 1932, when the lesson mainly replaced other organizational forms of teaching (e.g. Dalton plan), the lesson and the lesson planning have been an important research topic in didactics in Russia. Since the mid-1980s, the teachers’ planning process has been studied as a special pedagogical activity (“didactical projecting”). Even though the content of teaching has been essentially prescribed by the state curriculum and the planning of lessons has been largely influenced by textbooks and teachers’ handbooks, the single lessons are expected to be modified by teachers with respect to the special situation of the class (prior knowledge, developmental level, interests of pupils etc.), to the available resources and to the stage of professional development. The teachers’ planning decisions are based i.a. on didactic principles that determine the structure, general direction, and methods of teaching, on the classification of lesson types, on the comparative research of the effectiveness of teaching methods. The paper discusses the modes of lesson planning in the Soviet and Russian tradition of general didactics and addresses the current challenges for the instructional planning in terms of the implementation of educational standards, curricular and instructional differentiation and the use of ITC.