TE 802: Unit Plan Guide

Note: Notes in red italics (including this one) are advice on writing the unit plan that you
should erase from the final version.

You will have Parts I III in all of your unit plans and you will share all of your unit plans
with your mentor and field instructor. In addition, for the two unit plans you turn into for
a grade, you will need to have Part IV.

Name:
Mentor:
School:

Part I: Information about the Unit

Topic:
Type of Class
Choose the appropriate descriptors from the lists or substitute your own
descriptions.
Grade level(s): 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 High school basic elective/high track
advanced (e.g., AP)
Type of school: Urban Suburban Rural
Tracking level: Untracked Lower track College bound Inclusion
Abstract
Write a short description (100 words or less) of the main activities of your unit.
Include information about what units have come before that might be pertinent and
your main goal for the unit is. For example, this unit addresses the major phyla. At
this point, students have studied basic cellular functions, but not much at the
organismal level. Therefore, because we have not yet addressed evolution, we will
use body structure (flat, exo-, or endo-skeleton), digestion, circulation, and
reproduction as themes for comparing organisms.

Part II: Clarifying Your Goals

This section lays out a general understanding of the topic at a level that is appropriate
for your students. It should get at the essence (patterns and explanations) of the unit
and shed the details.
Big Ideas
Describe the most important patterns, models, and theories for this topic in
approximately 300 words. Use the language and ideas that you would like students in
your class to be able to use. Benchmarks for Science Literacy or the National Science
Education Standards are good resources for this section, but this section should be
written in your own words.
Checklist for Big Ideas.
Do you have a coherent, connected summary of the most important patterns,
models, and theories for your topic? Big ideas should express the key patterns and
explanations, not just name them.
Have you used important ideas from Benchmarks for Science Literacy or the
National Science Education Standards?
Is the language (e.g., vocabulary level) appropriate for students in your class? Big
ideas dont include every vocabulary word in the unit (though they should include the
most important ones), and they dont have many specific examples. The language
you use in your summary of big ideas should be the language you would like your
students to use.
The word students does NOT belong in your statement of big ideas. Think of big
ideas as what you would like your students to be able to tell you after the unit is
over.

Experiences, Patterns, and Explanations

Please use a new row in the table for each explanation, so that it is clear which
observations and patterns are associated with that explanation. In the table list:
Observations or data - Outgoing or target experiences or observations are
those that you want your students to be aware of and work with during this unit.
These could be personal experiences or data that are collected during this unit or
data that students get from demonstrations, websites, etc. They should be direct
descriptions of objects, systems, or events in the material world. Incoming
experiences are those experiences that students have already had in school or
are likely to have had in everyday life that are pertinent to this unit.
Patterns in the data that you want your students to see or be aware of.
Theories or models that you want your students to use to explain or understand
the observations and patterns.
In the Observations column, you may find it useful to group your examples into
classes, naming the class and giving specific examples. For example: Mass changes
in growing plants (e.g., bean plants growing, bean plants making beans, oak trees
growing, spirogyra (an alga) growing.
Checklist for Experiences, Patterns, and Explanations.
Are your observations/experiences specific real-world objects, systems, or
phenomena, not the concepts we use to explain them. For example, light-
 dependent reactions and light independent reactions are not good real-world
examples for photosynthesis. Similarly, temperature, and convection are not
good real world examples for heat transfer.
Are the observations experientially real to your students? They should be either
systems or phenomena that your students have already experienced or that you
could help them experience, first hand or vicariously. (This does not imply that your
list should consist only of examples actually included in your class activities.)
Do your Observations, Patterns, and Explanations fit into a coherent whole?
Your observations, patterns, and explanations should be connected to one another.
For example, each model or theory that you list should have observations and
patterns to go with it.
Are your observations, patterns, and explanations connected to your big ideas?
The key models, laws, and theories in the big ideas statement should be listed in
summary form in your table.

Observations or experiences Patterns (laws, Explanations

(examples, phenomena, data) generalizations, graphs, (models, theories)
tables, categories)
Incoming experiences

Target experiences

Application: Model-based Reasoning using models/theories to explain

experiences
Inquiry: Finding and Explaining Patterns in Experience

Objectives for Student Learning

Use the table below to list the appropriate Michigan Objectives The
Michigan Objectives should be copied from the Michigan Framework Objectives or the
appropriate High School Expectations available via the course website. For each
objective, use the second column to say what type of objective it is (using, constructing,
or reflecting as defined in the Michigan Objectives). Because the Michigan
Objectives can be very broad and general, it is helpful to create a handful of
objectives for your unit that are more specific.

Checklist for Objectives for Student Learning

Know or understand are not sufficient verbs for objectives, because they do
not specify a level of understanding. For example, a scientist understands the
ideas differently than an undergraduate does or than your students will. If you find
yourself using these verbs, try tacking on the phrase well enough to.
Does each objective describe student learningsomething that your students
will be able to do after the class is overnot just a teaching activity to be completed
 in class? For example, Conduct an experiment on plant growth under different
environmental conditions is a good learning activity, but not a good objective. It
doesnt say what students will learn to do as a result of conducting the experiments.
Does each objective relate to a set of examples, not just a single example? For
example, Explain how plants get their food is a better objective than Explain how
an oak tree gets its food.
Are your objectives connected with your Big Ideas and Experiences/Patterns /
Explanations? Does each objective describe ways that you would like your students
to connect experiences, patterns, and explanations?
Do you have a small number of objectives that describe significant learning? Do
not write too many small objectives. Even a unit that is several weeks long should
be organized around a small number of significant objectives.

Michigan Objectives Type

1. Choose one:
Content (Using)
Process
(Constructing
Reflecting)
2.
Synthesized Unit Objectives
1. Choose one:
Content (Using)
Process
(Constructing
Reflecting)
2.
3.

Part III: Assessment and Activities

This section contains your plans for the summative assessment and major activity for
each objective. The summative assessment should match the objective. For example,
if the objective calls for students to explain, the summative assessment should not just
ask students to describe. If your summative assessment will be an exam, include
several sample exam questions that match the objective. The major activity for an
objective is one that will take the biggest share of instructional time and should be one
where the students have an active role (a coaching or fading activity, not a modeling
activity.) You should describe the activity in enough detail so that we can picture what
the main content will be and what the role of the teacher and students will be. It may be
easiest to attach the handouts that associated with each activity, but make sure we can
figure out which activity goes where.

Checklist for Assessment and Activities Grid.

 Do the assessment activities or questions call for the same level of understanding or
performance as the objectives? (If not, you should change the assessments OR the
objective.)
Do the activities address the objectives you listed above? (If not, you should change
the activities or the objectives.)
Do the assessment tasks reveal enough about students thinking that you will be able
follow their reasoning?
Does the major activity provide a significant opportunity for students to practice the
objective?
Do your assessment tasks and your major activities have students connect
experiences to explanations, that is, have you made effective use of your EPE table?
Are all of your big ideas addressed in your assessment and activities grid?
Synthesized Unit Summative Assessment Major Activity
Objectives
Part IV: An Activity Cycle
You need do this section ONLY FOR THE UNIT PLANS FOR GUIDED LEAD
TEACHING that you turn in for grades. One of these two unit plans (probably the
first one) should have an application activity cycle. The other (probably the second
one) should have an inquiry activity cycle. We suggest this order, because inquiry
cyclse are more difficult to design and this will give you more time to plan one.
However, if the subject matter of your first guided lead teaching is more amenable to
inquiry teaching, feel free to switch the order.

Objective: copy one of your unit objectives here.

Application Activity Cycle

Use the table below to lay out the stages of a complete activity cycle for this
objective. You should have enough of a description of each activity to make it clear how
it meets the criteria for that stage. If you have other files that describe the activities or
are used in them (such as worksheets, handouts, or lab directions), include references
to those files in you activity descriptions. Remember that it may take more than one
activity to accomplish each stage.

Stage Application Teaching Activities

Establishing
the
problem
Modeling
Coaching
Fading
Maintenance

Checklist for Application Activity Cycle

Are all of the activities matched to the same objective?
Is the problem interesting to your students something more than a school task?
Is it rooted in finding an explanation of an event that your students can relate to?
Does the modeling activity(s) introduce students to the ideas they will need AND
show them how to use those ideas to make sense of some event?
 Does the coaching activity(s) allow you to follow students ideas so that you can
give specific, appropriate feedback? Will students have an opportunity to use that
feedback?
Does the fading acitivity(s) reveal students thinking beyond being able to pick
among given choices?
Does the maintenance acitivity(s) have students use these same ideas along
with new ones?

OR

Objective: copy one of your unit objectives here.

Inquiry Activity Cycle

Type of Inquiry Cycle

Choose one:
1. Naturalistic or field inquiry: students look for patterns in observations that they make.
2. Experimental inquiry: students create new experience in the lab, often with planned
variation.
3. Data analysis: students look for and explain patterns in experientially real data sets
that are given to them.
4. Simulations: students look for patterns and explain results in virtual worlds that
imitate reality.

Examples and Pattern in Student Practices

In the space below list the specific examples (i.e., experiences or data) that you
will use during your learning cycle and the pattern that you expect students to follow in
accomplishing the objective for each example. If you have a handout or overhead that
shows the pattern, refer to it in your pattern description and attach a copy.
Checklist for examples and pattern.
Will students have access to enough data so that a pattern will be evident?
Does the pattern apply to all the examples? (Note that it might be a complex pattern
that involves classifying examples and treating different examples differently.)
Despite noise in the data, will students be able to discern the pattern?

List of examples or data

1.
2.

Pattern in student practices that applies to all examples

Sequence of Activities
Use the table below to list and briefly describe the sequence of activities that
your inquiry cycle will include. Remember you should be using the experiences from
your EPE table to guide your choice of activities.
Purpose of Activity Brief Description Associated
Materials
Choose 1 or more
Establish a problem /
Engage
Questions
Evidence: Data and
patterns
Students explanations
Scientific theories or
models
Communication
Choose 1 or more
Questions
Evidence: Data and
patterns
Students explanations
Scientific theories or
models
Communication
Choose 1 or more
Questions
Evidence: Data and
patterns
Students explanations
Scientific theories or
models
Communication
Choose 1 or more
Questions
Evidence: Data and
patterns
Students explanations
Scientific theories or
models
 Communication

Checklist for activities

Will the activities achieve their purposes?
Have you included enough detail (in the descriptions of the teaching activities or in
attached materials) so that a teacher reading about this inquiry cycle could try it in
his or her classroom?
Do your activities include the essential features of classroom inquiry, described in
table 2-6?