The purpose of this blog post is to reflect on the process of writing and peer reviewing unit plans, as we inch closer and closer to our student teaching journeys!
A few things stood out to me as "Ah Ha" moments, through getting helpful feedback from my peers to getting to see a few different approaches to writing unit plans that I can incorporate into my own method. I learned that writing a good learning objective needs to have the following elements: condition, performance, and criteria. In my first unit plan, I didn't include the criteria in some of my objectives, but now I feel more confident enough to write a good objective. I also realized that I need to steal from outside sources more and incorporate them into my unit plans by putting my own twist on them. My last "Ah Ha" moment was a suggestion I got from one of my cohort peers who reviewed my Land Use and Soils unit plan. He suggested putting the lesson tittles into a table with each specific learning objective aligned with them. This small change, made my unit plant a lot easier to follow and will be better for me to actually use in the spring!
One element I saw from a unit plan that I reviewed was the need to emphasize variability and changing what the students are doing often throughout the instruction. The unit plan lessons and activities were based on hands-on experiences and really seemed like students would be gaining great knowledge and skills from the unit. Another element I saw in a unit plan I reviewed that tied well with the course content was the end of the unit assessment. The assessment had students demonstrate a a skill that they practiced for a few class periods prior.
One thing that I noticed that we missed the mark on a little was using standards as a way to guide our instruction. I had trouble writing my unit standards at first because I thought they were so broad and I didn't know how to write a lesson off a particular standard. However, I learned that the AFNR standards offer really good lesson plan ideas that I was able to incorporate into the unit plans. Overall, the reflective process of receiving feedback and providing suggestions was very beneficial and I will use what I learned to continue writing more unit plans.
I like the idea of including skills in the end-of-unit assessment that students have previously demonstrated. That's a great example of giving students an opportunity to learn which is an element of Rosenshine and Furst's principles of effective teaching. By getting those "reps" in at the gym, students are better building those muscles for long-term memory storage.
ReplyDeleteNate, I like your analogy of repetitive instruction being similar to "reps" at the gym! I will definitely keep that in mind and will continue to ensure students have an opportunity to learn as I write my lesson plans.
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