UNIT PLANNING GUIDE

INSTRUCTIONAL UNIT PLAN (IUP) OVERVIEW

Begin with a title page and table of contents, then include the following:
Step 1: General Information
• Select a Unit Title
o Think of a relatively short title for your unit
• Subject/Unit Topic(s)
• Identify grade level or course (e.g.- Grade 6, Algebra)
• State the length of class time in minutes (refer to yearlong internship, clinical placement,
or current lateral entry teaching assignment)
• Define the student population, student characteristics including accommodations (e.g.
IEP, 504 Plan, honors, regular students, mixed academic levels, ESL, ELL, ethnic and
cultural background, etc.).
o These must be based upon an authentic classroom as stated in the previous bullet.
o Instruction and content should be designed to effectively address the diverse
needs of all students.
• Length of Time for Unit Plan (7-10 days)
• Situate this IUP in the scope and sequence (Provide a context for the content of the IUP)

Step 2: Demonstrating Depth of Content Knowledge and Defining Unit Content;

Identifying Unit Goals
• Link to Content Standards
o Correlation to NCSCOS (list applicable standards)
o Connection to other disciplines (middle grades)
• Summary of Unit [This is the scope of the content within the Instructional Unit Plan]
o Identify content specific learning outcomes
 Behavioral Objectives
• This should focus on the specific knowledge, skills, and values,
which are to be learned from this unit. This should be written in
the perspective of the learner and not the perspective of the teacher.
(SWBAT) These objectives are what you will assess as a result of
the unit. Statements should be specific.
• Students will be able to:
• What students will be able to do as a result of their
learning (relating to the achievement objectives) in
this unit?
• All learning outcomes MUST start with a measurable stem verb
such as describe, explain, analyze, apply, argue, classify, compare,
create, define, design, discuss, illustrate, justify, list, predict,
present, state, identify, outline....
• It is NOT enough to say that students will "know" or students will
"understand". This is too broad and relates to unit goals.
o Identify important subject matter elements
 What is unique to this topic/content that students must know before they
can understand the big ideas of the IUP? (Prior knowledge)
 Scope and Sequencing of Content
Outline and organize content to be covered in each daily lesson plan.
• What are the unit concepts, skills, and values to be taught within each lesson?
• Organize your outline into a unit planning calendar
• Make sure that each day’s content connects to the next day and to previous day(s)
and subsequent day(s). All lessons within a unit must be integrated into a
common theme/concept and must be interconnected. This is essential for student
understanding.

Step 3: Analyzing Subject Matter Content and Identifying Content Resources

What content is important? What resources should be included? The responses to these
questions begin with research. You will need to become the content expert to effectively
determine what is important and what should be taught as well as the hard decisions of what
should not be taught. You must also make decisions about what content resources you will use to
teach your topic. This requires collecting and analyzing content resources. As you conduct your
research develop a bibliography of content resources. Include all materials you use in your
planning and student resources that you integrate into your unit of study.
List all technology, print, visual, and human resources
Include resources used for background information
Include information on obtaining materials & resources
Identification and analysis of instructional resources
• Examples
o Textbook
o Outside resources
o Case studies
o Documents
o Films, Video, Video Clips (i.e- You Tube)
o Readings
o Literature
o Music
o Laboratory Investigations
o PBLs
o Teacher resources
• Word Problems
• Worksheets
Unit should contain a unit bibliography listing supplemental materials
Citations
APA (American Psychological Association - the most commonly used referencing system for the
Social Sciences).
Author (year) Title Publisher Place. http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/elecapa.html

Step 4: Identifying Unit Goals

· What enduring understandings are desired?
o What overarching understandings are desired?
o What will students understand as a result of this unit?
· State essential questions

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 o What essential questions will guide this unit and focus teaching and learning?
o What essential and unit questions will focus this unit?
o Develop questions that overview what will be learned from the unit. These
questions can be posed at the beginning of the unit. These answers are what
students will learn as a result of the instruction.
· What key knowledge and skills will student acquire as a result of this unit?
o Students will know…
o Students will be able to… {these are your behavioral objectives}
All goals and objectives must be integrated into lessons.

Step 5: Scope and Sequencing of Content

Briefly summarize the content to be covered in the unit.
• This should be a minimum of a paragraph. You may opt to create an outline of the
content. This will be acceptable. This also would be a great place to utilize a graphic
organizer for helping you identify your content appropriate for this unit of study.
Outline content to be covered in each daily lesson plan
• What are the unit concepts, skills, and values?
• Develop a unit outline to identify important subject matter elements
• A good place to start is with an advanced organizer
• Organize your outline into a unit planning calendar
• Make sure that each day’s content connects to the next day and to previous days and
subsequent days. All lessons within a unit must be integrated into a common
theme/concept and must be interconnected. This is essential for student understanding.

Step 6: Determining Acceptable Evidence

• What evidence will show what students understand?
• Outline the methods of assessment that will be used throughout the unit plan .
• Develop an assessment system for your unit of study.
• Overview how grades will be assigned for the entire unit.
o Think through what assignments will make up the final unit grade and how each
of these will be weighted.
• Types of assessments
o (Include criteria to be used to distinguish levels of student proficiency)
o Diagnostic
 Identify prior knowledge
 What do students know?
• Pretests
o Formative assessments
 Formal and informal observations
 Informative or in-progress assessments
 Methods used for aiding student self-assessment
o Summative assessments
 Performance tasks
 Projects
 Quizzes
 Tests

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  Student work samples
 Methods used for aiding student self-assessment

LESSON PLANS
Application of Unit Goals: Lesson Planning
Step 7: Developing Unit Strategies and Activities
• Learning experiences that engage students in the subject matter content of the unit
• Heart of the unit
o Motivate learning
o Introduce the unit
o Culminate the unit
o Review and reinforce the unit
• Instructional strategies
• Daily lesson plans will be used to
o Develop behavioral objectives
• Concepts, knowledge, skills, and values
o Objectives
• This should focus on the specific knowledge, skills, and values, which are
to be learned from this unit. This should be written in the perspective of
the learner and not the perspective of the teacher. (SWBAT) These
objectives are what you will assess as a result of the unit. Statements
should be specific.
• Students will be able to:
• What students will be able to do as a result of their learning
(relating to the achievement objectives) in this unit?
• All learning outcomes MUST start with a measurable stem verb such as
describe, explain, analyze, apply, argue, classify, compare, create, define,
design, discuss, illustrate, justify, list, predict, present, state, identify,
outline....
• It is NOT enough to say that students will "know" or students will
"understand". This is too broad and relates to unit goals.
o Define and explain instructional strategies, i.e. the integration of technology, use
of literature, etc.
• Format of daily lesson plans is flexible for this task
o Select the most appropriate format for teaching your content, but keep the format
consistent throughout the unit plan.
o Lessons should have the essential elements as outlined in lesson development
course tasks.

ORGANIZATION OF UNIT PLAN

Step 8: Organizing the Unit Packet
• The unit plan should be one file! If you have more than one file for your unit, combine
them into one.
• Design a table of contents outlining all materials included in your unit packet
• Organize teacher and student materials
• Include appendices of all resources/teaching materials utilized in the unit plan

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 • e.g. handouts, assessments, rubrics, writing prompts, outlines for transparencies,
etc.
• This should be included at the end of each lesson plan as an appendix. All
supplemental materials, activities, assignments, writing prompts, assessments,
tests, rubrics, worksheets, etc., must be included in the appendix.
• The unit plan should be a complete final product that anyone could take and use
in his/her mathematics classroom.

SUMMATIVE REFLECTION
Step 9: Reflective Pedagogy
Critically analyze what you have learned through this unit planning process and from this
course. Your reflection should be a typed written 2-3 page self-analysis of your pedagogical
understanding. The reflection should be the last 2-3 pages of the file that is your unit plan.

Caution: Avoid Fluff. Too often unit plans contain lots of fluff (fun activities that really don’t
teach much content). Be sure that your Instructional Unit Plan is well grounded in content and
the learning experiences are purposeful and well developed. Remember that your main goal as a
teacher is to effectively teach content by scaffolding student learning. This is the real challenge
of teaching: selecting meaningful and powerful content and instructional strategies that make
learning enjoyable and engaging.