As I enter week 3 of the final semester of my #TeachAg journey before student-teaching, we have entered into the realm of formulating unit plans.
Unit plans are extremely important in how a teacher designs and focuses curriculum to meet the learners and communities needs, make sure that the material is relevant and not just "nice to know," and to keep the class on track for purposeful and active learning.
Here are the various components to a Unit Plan:
1. Title
-Should include action terms to convey to the students that they will be involved
-Ex. calibrating, timing, constructing, selecting, designing
-Should reflect what the unit is about and the scope of the un
2. Situation
-The teacher needs to take into consideration the local situation and what is relevant to the communities needs
-This creates a frame of reference for which the unit is taught
-Can include state proficiency skills or competencies
3. Instructional Objectives
-Describes what the teacher wants the students to know
-Gives details about what the students should be able to do after instruction as been provided (psychomotor)
-A list of learning outcomes
-What is our goal from a teacher's perspective
4. Interest Approach
-A way of introducing material to students that sparks their excitement and curiosity towards a topic/subject/class
-Its intent is to build the students' desire to learn
-Ex. projects, experiments, demonstrations, etc.
5. Reasons for studying the unit
-The goal is to establish a solid case for why it is important for the students to learn this material
-These reasons correlate to student objectives and goals
-Use lead-in questions to get students to realize why it is important
-Ex. why do you need to learn how to...
what are some goals you wish to achieve
6. Questions to be answered
-This is a list of questions that the unit plans should address through the course
-These questions provide a framework for the "problem" area being studied
7. Answering questions, acquiring knowledge, and developing skills
-Planning for how to help students solve the problems in calss
-How does the teacher help the students learn new skills
-How do we get students the "need-to-know" information
8. Application of Learning
-"Hands-on" learning
-Helps student retain information and see the relevance for real-world application
-Approved Practices
-Make it as authentic as possible
9. Reference and teaching aids
-Any resource that adds to or helps the teacher better plan the unit and teach the lesson
-Online resources (Ex. google classroom, e-backpack, COP, iCEV, AgEdNet, MyCart)
-"Hard-copy" of any print materials (Ex. textbook, teacher referencing materials)
10. Evaluation procedure
-Teacher must plan how to evaluate the instruction and learning on the students' part
-Write down quiz questions
-Make outline for laboratory practical exams
Each and every aspect of developing unit plans is important to providing the most relevant and well-structured curriculum to use in the classroom. It is my goal as I move forward and begin developing my units and lesson plans for my student-teaching experience, that I can keep the aspects of developing a unit plan along with the principles of teaching and learning to make curriculum that is serving my students well.
Newcomb, L.H., McCracken, J.D., Warmbrod, J.R., & Whittington, M.S. (1993). Methods of teaching agriculture. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.