Science Unit Plan
TE 804 - Reflect & Inq Tchng Pract II
Spring 2013
Spring 2013
Standard 2: Understanding of subject matter, how to teach It, and how to design curriculum, instruction, and assessment to foster students’ understanding
Thoughtful, accomplished teachers deeply understand the subjects they teach as academic disciplines, how to teach subject matter in different ways to students, and how to relate content to students’ prior knowledge, interests, and lives in meaningful ways. They craft coherent units of study around “big ideas.” They provide different pathways for students to access and engage in subject matter, and to demonstrate their understanding. They monitor students’ progress and use a variety of assessments as tools for learning and planning.
Goal 2: Accomplished Teaching
The candidate has pursued personal goals to strengthen targeted areas of his/her professional practice; sought to expand his/her pedagogical knowledge, skills, and repertoire in teaching subject matter to diverse students; documented the effects and implications of one’s practice or a school’s policies/practices for K-12 students’ learning and opportunities to learn; demonstrated a strong commitment toward students’ learning and strengths, and ways to capitalize on these in teaching versus focusing on perceived deficits or contextual constraints.
Thoughtful, accomplished teachers deeply understand the subjects they teach as academic disciplines, how to teach subject matter in different ways to students, and how to relate content to students’ prior knowledge, interests, and lives in meaningful ways. They craft coherent units of study around “big ideas.” They provide different pathways for students to access and engage in subject matter, and to demonstrate their understanding. They monitor students’ progress and use a variety of assessments as tools for learning and planning.
Goal 2: Accomplished Teaching
The candidate has pursued personal goals to strengthen targeted areas of his/her professional practice; sought to expand his/her pedagogical knowledge, skills, and repertoire in teaching subject matter to diverse students; documented the effects and implications of one’s practice or a school’s policies/practices for K-12 students’ learning and opportunities to learn; demonstrated a strong commitment toward students’ learning and strengths, and ways to capitalize on these in teaching versus focusing on perceived deficits or contextual constraints.
Commentary
This artifact was created in TE 804: Reflection and Inquiry of Teaching Practice II. The course set out to develop thoughtful understanding of authentic and meaningful science instruction through inquiry. While completing field work in my internship classroom as a student teacher, this course aided in the development of my science unit instruction. Pedagogy of science instruction focused on Main thing is to be developing consistent learning goals and using an Experiences – Patterns – Explanations (EPE) model to deliver instruction.
The primary assignment in the course was the development of a unit plan focused on a big scientific idea. The process was extensive and comprehensive. Scaffold to help structure a thoughtful and thorough unit plan, the process was broken up into five parts - Part 1: Learning Goals, Part 2: Pre-Assessment Assignment Instruction, Part 3: Instructional Approach, Part 4: Lesson Plans, Part 5: Analysis of Student Learning and Reflection. Working closely with a colleague intern, we developed our unit plan focused on the big ideas and concepts surrounding force and motion.
In the unit plan, I show a complete understanding of the subject matter. I researched and used multiple resources to achieve this understanding, and worked to assess what parts were most important for student comprehension of the main concepts and ideas. Through careful planning and constant collaboration with peer and professor, I was able to design curriculum, instruction, and assessments that were able to foster students' understanding of the big ideas. The lessons were engaging which heightened the experience and improved learning outcomes. By structuring the unit plan to include a pre-assessment, it allowed me to identify what strengths students had and showed me how I could utilize those to help build student learning. The creation of this unit plan drastically strengthened my professional practice by increasing my repertoire in teaching subject matter. I was able to take many ideas that I had only read about or were simply conceptual theories and actually put them into practice. This gave me the opportunity to learn what practices were successful at advancing student learning and which were not.
This artifact was created in TE 804: Reflection and Inquiry of Teaching Practice II. The course set out to develop thoughtful understanding of authentic and meaningful science instruction through inquiry. While completing field work in my internship classroom as a student teacher, this course aided in the development of my science unit instruction. Pedagogy of science instruction focused on Main thing is to be developing consistent learning goals and using an Experiences – Patterns – Explanations (EPE) model to deliver instruction.
The primary assignment in the course was the development of a unit plan focused on a big scientific idea. The process was extensive and comprehensive. Scaffold to help structure a thoughtful and thorough unit plan, the process was broken up into five parts - Part 1: Learning Goals, Part 2: Pre-Assessment Assignment Instruction, Part 3: Instructional Approach, Part 4: Lesson Plans, Part 5: Analysis of Student Learning and Reflection. Working closely with a colleague intern, we developed our unit plan focused on the big ideas and concepts surrounding force and motion.
In the unit plan, I show a complete understanding of the subject matter. I researched and used multiple resources to achieve this understanding, and worked to assess what parts were most important for student comprehension of the main concepts and ideas. Through careful planning and constant collaboration with peer and professor, I was able to design curriculum, instruction, and assessments that were able to foster students' understanding of the big ideas. The lessons were engaging which heightened the experience and improved learning outcomes. By structuring the unit plan to include a pre-assessment, it allowed me to identify what strengths students had and showed me how I could utilize those to help build student learning. The creation of this unit plan drastically strengthened my professional practice by increasing my repertoire in teaching subject matter. I was able to take many ideas that I had only read about or were simply conceptual theories and actually put them into practice. This gave me the opportunity to learn what practices were successful at advancing student learning and which were not.
