Rationale

The purpose of having you develop a small unit plan is to assist you in thinking beyond single lesson planning. This activity is meant to provide an opportunity for you to create a plan for a two-week unit consisting of about ten one hour lessons organized around a “big question” or inquiry.

Description

The Manitoba Social Studies Curriculum provides an organizing structure and possible resources and teaching strategies to use for each cluster. There is an explicit scope and sequence (topics organized by grade) that also places a structure on the units (clusters and sub-clusters). This assignment will demonstrate how to build a “big” question inquiry unit using the existing cluster topics and concepts, learning objectives, and its resources, yet it will provide you an alternative to the existing curriculum organization. It is a more student-directed way to organize curriculum as students make some of the decisions about research and presentation. It also can provide you a chance to add your own creativity and goals to the units.

The step-by-step process will be demonstrated in class and examples will be provided. Time will be allocated in class to allow for review and feedback from colleagues on your work in progress. You will create a big question inquiry unit using a grade level or cluster theme or a sustainability topic of your choice and hand it in as your final project for this curriculum and instruction course. My goal is to have the unit plans assessed and returned to you before you go out to your teaching placement. I also would like to place your unit plans on a web site for others to utilize if you provide permission.

Unit Plan Format

1. Descriptive Characteristics

Title / Theme –The “big” question or inquiry focus

Student Target Population / Grade Level and Cluster

Estimated Time Required: The minimal or suggested goal is 10 lessons of about an hour each. A longer unit is acceptable.
Overall Goal or Rationale: Develop a brief overview of the unit and outline why this unit is worth teaching and learning? Identify a goal or set of goals that this unit will be designed accomplish.

2. Focus questions and or subtopics: Break the big idea or theme into a set of more specific ideas, smaller subtopics, or focus / guiding questions.

3. Specific Objectives: List the specific objectives or learning outcomes to be accomplished with the unit and arrange them in sequential order. They should include Knowledge, Skills and Values. These should include those outlines in the Manitoba curriculum (all subjects and sustainability ones, not just Social Studies) but should include your own professional goals as well.

4. List of Resources: Identify, locate, and organize all the individuals, and the instructional resources that are available and might be used. Organize this list into sub-categories of books / Internet sites / other media / speakers/fieldtrips / etc. A short one sentence annotation is helpful.

5. A student assessment plan: Develop a student assessment plan which includes all assessments that you might be able to use to ensure that students are meeting your objectives and must include a culminating student performance or activity with a rubric.

6. A breakdown of each lesson with a description of what will be done in the lesson including what strategies the teacher will use, what the students will do, any assessment that will be carried out and materials needed. The teaching strategies should be listed under each of the 10 lessons and assist students in addressing the subtopics or focus questions that led to the culminating activity. You can also include your outcomes to be met in the lesson but this is optional. The first lesson is the Opener Lesson and should get students excited about the inquiry and should also introduce the "Big" Question in the first few lessons.The Culminating Activity must allow the students to present their answer to the “Big Question” either as a group but always should include some form of individual response to the "Big" question.

7. A reflective paper (about one page) that address some of the following:

What did you learn about yourself as a teacher during the development of this unit plan?
Why is it important for your students to participate in this unit? Or not?
How does this unit fit within your goal framework as a social studies teacher and your belief statements about teaching and learning? Or not?
Do you see a difference, an advantage, or incentive to the use inquiry learning? Explain.
Describe any other insights.

Due: February 22, 2013

Assessment Rubric

An excellent unit plan will have the following characteristics:

Organized and easy to follow and understand
Shows evidence of the integration of more than one social science and other subject areas.
Shows evidence of the connection to sustainability topics or outcomes
Contains the elements of a unit plan as outlined in the introduction (See format above)
Has a exciting Opener Lesson
Has a Culminating Lesson that allows students to answer the Big Question
Shows evidence of consideration for diverse learners
Includes Collegial Feedback Sheet (Pink Form)
Includes a well developed reflective response (See questions above)
The assignment is reflective of appropriate writing practices
Few spelling and grammatical errors
Handed in on time

Here are some final HINTS for completing your unit plan.

Weight: 40% of Final Grade

Note:

- A grade of 34 (B+) will be assigned for completion of responses and assignments to the Quality

Standard outlined above.

- Grades above the 34 will be based on exceptional work reflecting extra effort

- Grades below the 34 will be based on incomplete and / or work below the Quality Standard