The Four-day Teaching Unit involves working with colleagues to develop a short unit and to examine how your unit impacts student learning when you teach it. If your lesson plans are complete, if the final plans have been peer-edited and reviewed by me, and if they have received your cooperating teacher’s pre-approval—you will be teaching this unit to at least one but preferably two classes in one of your two student teaching placements (in late October/early November).

During your observation visits, you and your cooperating teacher together will discuss the short unit s/he wants you to plan and teach during the four days.  In terms of your Methods requirements, you need to include at least one class discussion, a variety of instructional strategies that are either cross content or non-content specific (e.g. KWL charts, ticket out the door, think-pair-share, framed outlines, small-group discussion, debate, etc.), and you need to assign and evaluate at least one writing assignment. The writing assignment does not have to be an “essay,” and may serve as your pre-test, daily assessment tool, or final assessment (post-test) depending on how you set it up. 

During the middle of October, you will bring two sets of your complete lesson plans to class: one will be distributed for peer editing, and the second will be handed in for my review.  The lesson plans should be detailed (including all completed handouts and prepared discussion questions) and should have also been through at least one round of revision with your cooperating teacher.  Ask your cooperating teacher to email me, letting me know that s/he is satisfied with the unit. 

As part of your four-day unit, you must do some formal assessment of your students’ learning of the objectives you set for them.  Collect ANONYMOUS samples of at least three students’ assessments (ask your cooperating teacher for school and district policies regarding appropriate permissions for copying and keeping student work).  One sample should demonstrate excellence along your objectives, one adequate performance, and one performance in need of improvement.  You should also keep a record of how all of the students performed on this assessment.  You will then use these samples and data to discuss student learning in your reflections.  Refer to the samples of student work you kept to analyze how well your students learned what you meant for them to learn.  As part of this reflection, you will consider the relationship between how you taught and how they learned, your teaching of diverse students, and how you might change your teaching to help all students learn better.

Here is a copy of the observation form that is used during student teaching by supervisors.  You will give that to your cooperating teacher and ask him/her to watch one of your lessons and complete the form, which you will submit along with your final, revised and analyzed lesson plans.

Throughout the four-day unit, you will keep writing in your teaching journal about this experience.  Consider how the lesson went for each section you teach, what things you’re comfortable with, what things you still need to work on.  You will propose concrete changes to your lesson plans based on your journal.  If you have doubts about student teaching as a result of your four-day unit, address them in the journal as well.  What have you learned about your strengths and weaknesses as a prospective teacher?

 As part of this assignment, you will do the following:

1. Write a brief overview of your Four-Day Teaching Unit that includes your goals, resources examined and selected for the unit, how your unit will help students become familiar (or more familiar) with their own and others’ cultures, and how you incorporated interdisciplinary teaching strategies into your unit.
2.  Examine student prior knowledge relevant to your unit (e.g., pre-test or other means of diagnosis or investigation, such as a survey,  teacher observation log, K-W-L chart,  student work, etc.).
3. Plan and implement an appropriate sequence of instruction, aligned with NYSED ELA standards, to advance student learning and teach it in a way that meets the needs of diverse students.
4. Assess student learning using a structured measure of student learning.
5. Analyze post-test results, resulting student work, etc.
6. Write a reflective analysis, using your journal as resource material, discussing your results. Be sure to address what worked particularly well and what you need to change to make the unit even more successful.

Please put your Four-Day Unit in a folder.  The folder should contain:

a)      Four-Day Unit Overview

b)      Pre-test

c)      Lesson Plans (Follow lesson-plan guidelines distributed in class)

d)     Final Assessment (include student samples of work at each level of performance)

e)      Reflective analysis

We will assess the unit in terms of this rubric.