This meme is what I learned these last couple of weeks while preparing this unit plan.
One big thing we, as pre-service teachers, have to do is write unit and lesson plans. We were told to write a "model unit plan" that we would receive feedback on. This model unit could be used by us to base the rest of our units off of (the format and how we planned the unit).
Unit Plan Essentials are as follows:
- Name of Unit
- Unit Rationale (why teach this in your community)
- Anticipated Number of Class Sessions Needed
- Length of Each Class Session
- Supplies Needed for Unit
- PA Academic Standards/Assessment Anchors
- PA Ag Content Standards/Benchmarks (or AFNR; Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources)
- Names of Lesson Titles
- Unit Goals (major concepts that will be taught)
- Specific Daily Learning Objectives Addressed (performance, criteria and condition for student to complete task)
- Unit Assessments/Evaluation Strategies
- Exceptional Children Strategies/Accommodations/Adaptations
- A Specific Science and/or Math and/or English Enhancement (how it relates to core subjects)
- Total Ag Ed Program Connection (FFA and SAE integration)
- Specific Careers Prepared For
- References (APA Format-resources used to make unit/gather information)
At first, I panicked. Then I started to think about it and type it all out. As soon as I started the process, I calmed down because I was getting a feeling for all of the components. Of course, it's not going to be anywhere near perfect but practice makes perfect!
Honestly, I was not real comfortable with bullet points 5-11; the core of an unit plan. I knew about them and what needed to happen, I just wasn't comfortable writing my own yet. We had some practice with all of it but I didn't feel as if any of mine was good enough.
The Good and The Bad
After my peers reviewed my unit plan, I felt a lot better! They said that everything looked pretty good. My lesson plan names were all in question form and I did not use "understand" in any of my objectives. For the future, I will definitely keep that the same!One big thing that I struggled with at the start was making unit assessments. My peers commented on that as well; "these may be hard to assess." As in, the lesson plans may be hard to assess without some solid form of assessment (ex. rubric). For the future, I will seriously consider using rubrics (which I did include for this unit after the revision). I will explore other types of assessment to be used with any and all subjects. Although, I do not want to have the same type of assessment all of the time because I feel like the students would get tired of the same thing over and over again.
Sara, thanks for including the background on your unit plan components as well as what worked well and what you found to be most challenging. Could you tell us a bit more about your unit, such as what topic it was on? This will help provide your readers with more context and can help them connect you will additional resources or information to help make your plan even better.
ReplyDeleteSara, writing objectives, like many things, comes easier with time and practice. As you advance forward and the squeeze of student teaching tightens, you will be forced to get better and quicker at forming them. Good blog, nice that you included all the components as part of it. Always here to help.
ReplyDeleteI too would be interested in knowing the unit plan topic or even just attaching it to the blog if that's possible. Nice job!!! Projects/rubrics are a good form of summative assessment for a unit when used correctly. Don't fall into the rut of giving a written test at the end of units.
ReplyDeleteYou will end up being grateful that you have had this lesson planning experience when you enter the teaching force. The experience you are having, although frustrating now, will help create a solid foundation as you move forward, building not only your student teaching tool kit but a treasure trove of resources to draw on as you enter the profession. RubiStar is a tool that helps generate rubrics. Although you might need to tweak to make them your own, it gives several different basic formats you can build on and then export as Excel documents for saving and future editing. It's at http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
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