Week+Four

Designing a Unit of instruction: Introduction 10 min [|curriculum theories.doc]

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--At MSCD, we embrace [|Backwards Design] (a design strategy by Wiggins and McTighe as found in their Understanding By Design publications). =====

--"makes most sense."
10 min

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 * From now until the day you retire from teaching, these four questions need to drive EVERY TEACHING decision you make! If you learn NOTHING else from me, please commit these foundational questions to your soul. **=====

2 min

--like a book with chapters and subheadings and information, activities in a logical sequence of information
15 min Partners


 * WHAT DOES A UNIT LOOK LIKE? **

Is there an authentic (real world) element?
Would you teach this unit? If not, what would you change in order to adopt it?

As you peruse these, pay PARTICULAR note to the activities (or lessons)!

Elementary: [] (4th grade Rain Forest) [] (1st grade Spiders) [] (fabulous lessons (k-3)

Excellent Middle School Units: []

High School: [] (high school units designed by teams of teachers)


 * 15 min **

typical semester of 9th grade Civics (this is a semester-long course)
--concepts, knowledge and skills to be taught? --organization of information in a logical manner --teaching strategies to get students to understand and be able to use the concepts, knowledge and skills --inclusion of other disciplines? --assesment to determine if the students have mastered understanding?

1. Consider the time you have to teach the subject. Unfortunately, time is a task master. For secondary schools, a course is taught in 18 weeks. For elementary, it is 36 weeks (the entire year). Of course, many of these days are lost to other activities (field trips, assemblies, no contact days, fire alarms, etc.).

2. Consider the units that will be taught and the length of time you will devote to each unit.

3. Flesh out each unit: key concepts to cover, knowledge to gain, skills to master.

4. Determine how you will know that students have mastered understanding.

4. Design teaching activities/strategies and organization for implementing the unit.

Let's take a look at the topics that will need to be covered (and uncovered): [|Civics in Action Syllabus.doc]

15 min Individual work

Now, let's take a look at how a teacher writes ONE unit of instruction. Read this carefully--this is what you will be doing in this course!

[|genoCurric2.pdf]

When I sit down to write a unit, this is the exact process I go through. TRY IT! [|How to write a unit.doc]

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I've written hundreds of units (some good, some great, some awful), but I've written many. And, as a result of working on many of these collabertively, this is a process that is sound and will work. Obviously, as you get more experienced, you will adapt it to your personal style or maybe design your OWN process, but **PLEASE READ THIS** and try it.=====

30 min

LET'S DO IT!

 * PART I**

1. Go back and review the Scope and Sequence of your first choice of grade level/content area.

2. MAKE A DECISION: decide on a unit of instruction (2-3 weeks) you will teach in your grade level/content. You will be writing 10 complete technology-driven lesson plans for this unit. That's not to say that these 10 lessons may be the ONLY lessons you would need for the unit, but this will give you an opportunity to build a sample unit with lesson plans.

3. Use the form below and complete it based on your ideas of what concepts, knowledge and skills you will need to impart to learners. I know this is hard!! It requires some knowledge that you may not have acquired in school yet, and a great deal of creativity, but this is a huge part of teaching and you need to start thinking about how to do it! And this is a safe place to get a start.

[|Designing a unit.docx]

Things to think about before writing lessons: --what concepts need to be taught --what knowledge needs to be mastered --what skills need to be attained --what is the authentic connection to the students' life --how will technology be used to enhance 21st century learning principles


 * PART II**

1. OPEN the document below and COPY AND PASTE IT 10 times into your wiki. This will become the place where you will write your 10 lessons.

[|Lesson Outline-r(2).doc]

This document represents one way of writing a lesson plan (albeit, a bit abbreviated). The purpose of this assignment is to get you thinking about what content/knowledge/skills need to be taught in scope and sequence units and activities (lesson plans) that would effectively use technology to change the learning and/or teaching environment. For example, if you are writing a unit on Evolution for a 9th grade Biology course, what content and skills do students need to master? If the standards call for Colorado History in the 4th grade, what is the content and skills that students need to know/be able to do in order to meet the standard? If the Middle East is the area of focus for 7th grade social studies, how will you decide (from a vast knowledge base) what is critical for the students to know to understand the Middle East? These are the very beginning questions for designing a unit. As stated in your wiki assignment your "Teaching With Technology" page will have a minimum of 10 lessons effectively using different technologies that span the content of your scope and sequence. Please do NOT embed the lesson plans, but DO copy and paste. The reason for this is simple: your lessons will be in a state of revision most of the time. Therefore, if you embed them in your wiki, you will always be downloading them, revising, then uploading. Also, when a hiring principal sees your lesson plans, you do not want them to have to download, then open them. Best to have them "viewable" instantly. However, HOW you organize the lesson plans is up to you. For example, you might want to create a table and then a separate page for each lesson, then create a link within the table. In this case, you would only put a link on the navigation bar to your table. Or, you could create a page with a description of each lesson and then link each lesson to a separate page. The decision is yours, but it must look professional, make logical sense, and be easy for someone to find your products.

**HINT** : as you are thinking about inclusions in your unit or your separate lessons, consider that you might be including the following assignment types:


 * --Introducing a concept**
 * --Reviewing information**
 * --Enhancing reading**
 * --Using technology with writing**
 * --Small group cooperation/colaberatio****n**
 * --Research project**
 * --Real world simulation**
 * --Presentation of student work (NOT IN FRONT OF CLASS!)**
 * --mapping activity**
 * --podcasting project (like a radio show)**
 * --timelining project**
 * --digital storytelling**

DON'T try to write ALL your lessons now because you haven't seen the tools you will have to use in writing those lessons. Your job right now is to review the scope and sequence and determine where the above list of inclusions would logically fall.

Remember: This document is a dynamic document--it will change and grow throughout the semester, so do not think this needs to be finalized today. That's not how curriculum is written--it is a journey, not an event.

Your wiki page with copy/paste of 10 lesson plans and an embedded document of the completed form found above.
 * What to turn in: **

If you made it to the bottom of this page, I have a hint for you! Remember Google? Try it! Google "Elementary Thematic Unit +Water Cycle" OR "High school unit +DNA"