My biggest takeaway when building a unit was planning ahead and making sure everything connected to the big idea. It is difficult to know what the unit will compose of, especially when considering the individual lesson plans will come later in segments. Having something to glue everything together therefore was quite helpful, making me appreciate and understand how important it is to have a clear big idea. I think inside the unit plan, there are a couple connections. I think the essential questions are quite connected to the big idea because those questions should guide those into thinking about the big idea. Moreover, the standards and learning objectives are connected because either I would pick my learning objectives and then find standards based on those, or I would find standards about functions and then write the learning objectives from there. Either way, they are connected. I think if I were to do this again, I would make sure to have one learning objective for each standard. I had many standards, and that could be overwhelming. I also would do more research on my big idea, language demands, and assessment data. I would tell people to pick something they already have many ideas on--an actual dream unit. I switched my ideas up a couple times. I wanted to talk about calculus, but it has been a while since I've done any calculus, so algebra was my next subject that I loved but also could talk about. I feel this whole idea of a dream unit kind of caught me off guard because I had never done a unit plan before, so really taking the time to think about what would be involved in a specific unit would be beneficial.
- What was the biggest takeaway from building the unit?
- Describe a connection you’ve made across two or more of the areas in the unit.
- What would you think about for the next time you build a unit?
- What would you tell people for next semester working on this project? (or for me)