Guidelines for Unit Plan/Major Project

English 250 Literacy and Technology

Dr. Susan Spangler, Instructor

 

Rationale:  Becoming a secondary teacher involves preparing lessons for learners.  These lessons are often grouped into units organized around a commonality, and teachers often design projects to bring the units to closure.  As one of the goals of this course is to prepare you to become a teaching professional, this assignment provides practice to that end.  Though it is not as authentic as I would like it to be, you will be exchanging with a classmate in order to see how well the unit or project works.

 

The Unit Plan/Project Assignment:  You may choose to design a UNIT (1-2 weeks of individual lesson plans for students to do in class organized around a genre, a figure, a time period, theme, or text) or a PROJECT (something like a web quest, making a movie, audio theater or some other task that students do mostly outside of class).   For the unit/project, you’ll need to address/articulate the following:

  • A rationale for the unit referring to the standards of your choice (NYS, NCTE, IRA) and assignment objectives.  See the sample plans for a sample of this section.
  • A schedule or calendar with explanations of assignments and a brief description of daily activities
  • Selected activities and handouts (like assignment sheets) and corresponding evaluation
  • Plans for evaluation tools you will use to assess student work
  • Sources you used in planning/preparing or for ideas
  • A reflective analysis in which you discuss your choices in the unit, especially regarding teaching methods (like you did for the lesson plan), sources of your ideas, insights gained from planning, predictions for success, plans for adaptations, and other useful information. 
    • Particular items for comment:
      • How the unit/project addresses technology resources and their uses
      • How the unit/project addresses best practices in teaching (Cambourne and the National Curriculum Reports)
      • How the unit/project addresses ISTE/NETS standards for students
      • How you might make accommodations for special needs students
      • The ease/difficulty of creative valid, authentic assessments for particular lessons/project
      • The higher-order skills that are addressed in your unit

 

This unit/project will be completed by another student, who will provide you with feedback so that you can revise it before it goes into your portfolio.  You will provide the student with assignment sheets, assessment rubrics, direct instruction, and all other materials needed to complete the assignment, so you need to be as realistic as possible when designing your unit/project.
 

In order to meet the target goals for the unit/project plans, you should:

  • plan and design effective learning environments and experiences supported by technology

  • implement curriculum plans that include methods and strategies for applying technology to maximize student learning

  • apply technology to facilitate a variety of effective assessment and evaluation strategies

  • create an inclusive and supportive learning environment in which all students can engage in learning

  • use practices designed to assist students in developing habits of critical thinking and judgment

  • examine and select resources for instruction such as textbooks, other print materials, videos, films, records, and software, appropriate for supporting the teaching of ELA

  • align curriculum goals and teaching strategies with the organization of classroom environments and learning experiences to promote whole-class, small-group, and individual work

  • integrate interdisciplinary teaching strategies and materials into the teaching and learning process for students

  • engage students in critical analysis of different media and communications technologies.

  • thoroughly analyze the lesson(s) by articulating the pedagogical theories that underpin the lesson

  • revise plans based on reflection and feedback

  • write the lesson(s) so that a qualified substitute could carry out the lesson(s).

 

Steps for Successful Completion:

  • Long before your project is due, you'll turn in a unit/project proposal (see the sample), which will tell me what you're planning to do and how you're planning to go about it.  I will comment on your proposal and return it to you to work on.

  • About a week before your unit/project is due, you'll turn in a draft of your complete plans to me for review.

  • On a specified day, you will tell the class about your unit/project, and someone in class will volunteer to complete it.  On that day, you will also volunteer to take someone else's unit/project.  You'll make arrangements to trade necessary items for completion.

  • You'll have about two weeks to do the unit/project in class with the "teacher's" help.  You will use this time to do the project, complete your critique of it, write your final reflections, and revise your unit/project plans

  • You will submit your revised project plans, and your "student's" work and critique in your portfolio.  See the portfolio rubric for more specifics on the assessment for this assignment.