Content-specific feedback is a critical part of a teacher’s professional development. The highest-impact feedback and professional learning are framed in the context of the student-teacher-content interactions of the instructional core (Elmore, 2000). However, there is a lack of commonly used teacher observation and evaluation rubrics that encourage content-specific feedback. Most rubrics focus on generic aspects of instruction, such as student engagement, with little focus on what is being taught. The Instructional Practice Guide (IPG) is a K–12 classroom observation rubric that prioritizes what is observable and expected of student-teacher-content interactions aligned to college- and career-ready standards in ELA/literacy and mathematics. This memo details the research underpinning the Core Actions and Indicators of the Instructional Practice Guide and explains how the design of the tool supports content-specific observation and feedback.