My biggest takeaway from building the unit would be creating the learning targets because I want to think about creating learning targets that utilize different cognitive processes and language demands so that the students are engaged and doing a variety of learning. Yet at the same time, I am working within the standards and the curriculum that my district is working with. I feel lucky that the middle school science curriculum seems to be very engaging and utilize a lot of activities, and/or that my mentor teacher has created a classroom that is so engaging for the students. I think one connection that I have made with the unit planning would be within my internship, how the teachers and administration create these things called know/show charts for the standards at each quarter to help with planning.
For the next unit that I will be planning, I will be sure to think about the how learning targets interconnect with standards and big ideas. One of the things that I struggled with when unit planning was the idea of pacing. Knowing how much time to devote to each subject/ learning target, especially when working within a specific time constraints such as the school's quarters. This is especially challenging when schools assign more or less standards to different quarters, allowing you to spend more time on certain subjects rather than others. Overall, I found unit planning difficult just because of balancing the big ideas with the minutiae of logistics. If I could offer a piece of advice for teacher candidates next semester, it would be not to get bogged down in overthinking and to just give yourself a bit of grace.
