Sherry TCSS11

CUPLS - Collaborative Unit Plan & Lesson Sequence

Purpose
To practice implementing lessons which are part of an overarching unit and adapting them to students Big Questions: What are the characteristics of a good unit plan? What makes good ELA instruction?

Rationale
During spring practicum, you will be teaching units (rather than single lessons) and teaching in a school context where collaboration with others is expected. For these reasons, we will plan and teach a unit together: Each of you will be responsible for teaching two lessons of that unit to your colleagues. This collaborative process will also model steps you take in individual unit planning.

Assignment
1. Rationale Together we will decide on the focus of our unit: Which text(s) or topic(s) should we address? What guiding questions will shape the content and organization of the unit? What state and national standards need to be addressed? What formative and summative assessment(s) would address the guiding questions? By what criteria should we evaluate performance on these assessments? How can we present assessments as valuable and accessible to students? How will we conduct groupwork? Discussions? Classroom management? When should these routines be introduced? Repeated? Modified? You will be paired with a colleague; each week two pairs will plan and teach a lesson The following week, one pair from the previous lesson will plan and teach the next lesson Each time you teach, you must draw on the previous weeks revision feedback (do this in the Modifications section of your plan) 5. Revision Each week we will respond to the plan and to the implementation of a lesson In advance of the lesson (by Sunday 5pm), teachers post a lesson plan to the wiki In advance of the lesson (by Monday 5pm), the rest of the class responds to the plan After the lesson, the rest of the class responds to the teaching of the lesson

2. Assessment Together we will decide how to gauge what is learned during this unit:

3. Routines Together we will decide what regular activities we might use during this unit:

4. Lessons Each of you will be responsible for teaching two consecutive lessons of this unit:

Sherry TCSS11 How should I respond to the plan? to the teaching of the lesson? The class rubric contains categories relevant to both planning and teaching a good lesson/unit; please make sure to address all of these as they apply to the plan/enactment to which you respond: o Is it RELEVANT to students? to standards? to the discipline of ELA? o Is it DIVERSE with regard to backgrounds, learning styles, activities? o Is it COHERENT with regard to how activities/lessons relate and build on each other o Is it ALIGNED with lesson/unit goals and assessments? o What else stands out to you as important advice for teacher(s) to hear? As a responder, please make sure to o PRAISE (e.g., I liked how your activities ALIGNED with the final assessment by.) o QUESTION (e.g., I noticed that you did/didnt include __. What made you decide this?) o SUGGEST (e.g., I think it would have been more RELEVANT to students if you.) o RESPOND to at least 3 specific moments of the plan/instruction For models, please see our wiki at tcss11.wikispaces.com/Participation#models 6. Reflection After teaching, you will revise and annotate one lesson for grading with the class rubric1 See How should I? section for questions to help you address the rubric criteria, and models on our wiki at tcss11.wikispaces.com/Collaborative+unit+plan#models PLANNING ASSESSMENT What are you proud of? In your own future classroom, what would you keep/change/add with regard to the plan? to instruction? to the rest of the unit? TEACHING

REFLECTION
1

We will develop the class rubric together through a lesson plan genre study during the first weeks of class.