One of the goals of my dream agriculture unit is that, whichever form students decide their final project will take on, they need to be able to use their new understanding and knowledge of food, diets, and types of agriculture to demonstrate how that has an impact in their lives and back it up with factual sources. This is specific for my students because they need to be able to understand how to look at sources and evaluate if they are a proper source with effective information that will support and elevate their work. They also need to show that they understand how this information will affect their decision making and choices going forward. High school, and especially my mentor teacher's classroom, is a place where students are not only learning the content, they are learning skills they need moving into life and this is a big one. I'm developing a rubric to assess the goal, because it will give me clear cut standards to understand what the goal is and that it's been met. The diversity of project types allows for students to meet different language demands, requires strategic and extended thinking, and can help them meet the standard of understanding human effect on the environment.
Unit planning requires so much of a look at the big picture and overall goals, questions, and evidence that it becomes easy to only think in broad terms. However, it is still connected to lesson planning, because you have to give thought to how long you want the unit to last based on how long you think lessons will take. You also have to get an idea of what the lessons will be and look like based on the standards and how you want to teach those in the daily class to figure out basic ideas of pacing and what other assignments will be beyond just the major summative. Overall, I'm learning different things with unit planning, but I see how useful it is, because it will then be your guide for lesson planning, and since some of those lesson plans were running in your head, you already have an advantage.
