Interdisciplinary Unit
Assignment Details
I. Your unit table of contents should be formatted like a table of contents inside a textbook or as an outline. Basically, your unit requirements page that indicates the point value for each piece of the unit IS your table of contents.
II. Your unit graphic should be a graphic organizer developed by you. You will include key points, the key questions, activities, etc. that you feel displays your unit in a single graphic organizer. For example, if you used a Bubble Map for your unit graphic, you would put the unit topic in the center and use the bubbles that come from the unit topic to include your key activities, questions, ideas, etc. The details of what you include is up to you. These are only suggestions. However, one look at the unit graphic should provide a visual of what the unit is all about. The key questions are the questions that guide student learning. Typically, these questions come from the various content standards that you use. Since you will be teaching an interdisciplinary unit, it is required that you use multiple content areas/standards as guiding principles for the unit. So, I would expect AT LEAST one key question per day of the unit (minimum of 5 days/5 key questions). Your questions should drive what you students will learn. For example, if my unit is on basketball in a PE class, one of my key questions may be: What is the proper form for shooting a free throw? or What are 3 types of offense and defense positions for a basketball team?
IIIA . Your overview should be a one-pager including the title of your unit and how long your unit lasts (as least 5 days), what strand you will be teaching (for example, Biology, if you are teaching about different diseases, the content area (ex: Science/Biology), the grade level you will be teaching the unit to, the overarching standard your unit addresses (ex: a Biology standard) plus any additional standards in other content areas will be listed here as well (ex: English/LA for writing investigative reports/lab reports, math for calculating percents, etc.), and grouping details stating how you will group students for different activities (you will tell if you group based on ability, based on personality, etc.).
B. You will detail in a few sentences how you account for diverse learners. How do you remediate for students who are not learning on the same pace as everyone else, enrich learners who are far ahead of the other learners, or meet learners’ needs who have diverse qualities (like students who speak another language, etc.)
C. Your interactive bulletin board MUST be an actual bulletin board displayed in your classroom or in the hallway next to your classroom. If you do not have a bulletin board space, create one by posting the bulletin board on the wall on paper or within a tri-fold board. Your bulletin board MUST have content from the unit and be interactive for students. In other words, students must be able to go to the bulletin board and use it to manipulate it in some way for learning (ex: post vocabulary words and definitions from the unit and have students match them; students use parts of the flower to label the flower parts by velcroing them to the proper place on the flower, etc.)
D. Your literature text set should include books that you actually used as a read aloud or for students’ use during the unit. You must include the title, author, and ISBN number of the books. You must include AT LEAST 10 books.
IVA. You will include at least 5 lesson plans (one per day). You will use the format provided on our course Blackboard page.
B. You will include pictures of the unit. You can include pictures of the students IF you have received parental consent. IF YOU HAVEN’T RECEIVED PARENTS’ APPROVAL, you can include pictures of different activities, etc. you use during the unit.
C. You will include student work samples. You can take pictures and upload those (this will be considered separate from the pictures for the unit) or you can scan these in and email with the rest of the unit. The interest inventory, learning styles inventory, pre/post test, students’ unit evaluations, students/ teacher evaluations, and students/ center evaluations are NOT part of the student work samples. The student work samples in this section should be taken from activities included in the unit teaching.
D. You will include any type of evaluation you use to assess students’ understanding of the content of the unit (ex: tests, rubrics, quizzes, observations, lab reports, etc.)
VA. You will include all parent communications for the unit (ex: emails about the unit, newsletters, letter, etc.)
B. You will include an interest inventory that is age appropriate that you conducted with your students to determine their interests. These can easily be downloaded from the Internet. You must include some student samples to show me that you gave the students the interest inventory.
C. You will include a learning styles inventory that is age appropriate that you conducted with your students to determine their learning style(s)/how they learn best. These can easily be downloaded from the Internet. You must include student samples to show me that you gave the students the learning styles inventory. Your lesson plans must indicate that you are teaching/evaluating their learning based on how they learn best.
D. You must include a pre-test for your unit and a post-test. The pre-test can be an actual test/quiz or a KWL chart or another format. You will use the pre-test to assess the students’ knowledge of the content you will be teaching in the unit. This must be done well in advance of planning the unit to determine what content they know already (so you don’t re-teach that) and content they need to know. You will conduct a post-test (the L on the KWL-what they learned- or a test/quiz or another format. You will include students samples of the pre and post tests so I can see that you gave these assessments.
E. At the end of the unit, you will ask students to evaluate the unit. You can have them rank the unit parts on a Likert-type scale (1-5, with 5 being highest), by answering questions, by circling emojis matching their feelings about parts of the unit, etc. You must include student samples to show that you had students evaluate the unit (example questions may include: Did you enjoy the unit? What was your favorite activity, etc.)
F. At the end of the unit, you will include teacher evaluations, where students will evaluate you and how your taught the unit (How well did I teach you about INSERT CONTENT HERE, how did you feel about INSERT DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES/BOOKS here, etc.). They should give constructive feedback. Your grade will not suffer if all of their comments are not great because EVERY teacher is imperfect and needs feedback to grow and develop.
G. At the end of the unit, you will ask students to evaluate the centers. Centers will be AT LEAST part of ONE lesson plan/day of teaching. Centers are when students work in groups of 3-5 doing different activities at each group and then rotate to complete the remainder of the group activities. You can easily Google some great center ideas on the Internet. You must include student samples so I will know that you gave the students the center evaluations.
H. You will videotape yourself teaching ONE lesson during the unit. You will watch the video of yourself teach and HONESTLY and CONSTRUCTIVELY critique yourself. IF you ONLY include all positive feedback from your video, I will NOT give you full credit. EVERY teacher has plenty of room to grow. Tell the things that are strong in your teaching and things that need work. This will not make your grade lower to criticize yourself. I am looking for honesty and constructive criticism.
VI. You will include any other resources you used for the unit, including books, textbooks, Internet websites, etc. This will be in a list. For books, include the title and author. For websites, include the web address.
VIII. You will include a personal reflection of your unit and your instruction within the unit. This should be the last piece of your unit. You will think through each day, activity, evaluation, etc. and determine what you did well and what could be done another way if you re-taught this unit in the future. Again, I am NOT looking for perfection but for you to be honest and constructive in the unit preparation and teaching in its entirety.
