Sample Unit Plan Reflection

Reilly Finnegan
8/17/17

The biggest takeaway from my summer courses in Penn TEP and from my

summer teaching placement at Migrant Ed is that student diversity, in every sense of

the word, is the most important consideration for classroom teachers and it is perhaps

their paramount challenge. Moreover, being sensitive to that diversity and reacting to it

with skill and compassion is particularly crucial for teachers who wants to be effective

and beneficial to all their students--and they all should. I certainly do. This is not just a

matter of professional pride and craft, but one of politics as well. As I learned time and

again this summer, there are myriad ways that students can be marginalized and

disadvantaged, all stemming from long histories of oppression and discrimination in our

world, and it is these students (people of color, english language learners, students

living in poverty, women, LGBTQ students, etc.) who have the most to lose from

one-size-fits-all, mainstream pedagogy and curriculum. Conversely though, they also

have a lot to gain from well differentiated course designs and justice-minded teachers

with a commitment to education equity and contesting systems of privilege and . With

these thoughts on the front on my mind, I set out to design a first week lesson plan for

an 11th grade US History class that would, above all, build a classroom community

where every students feels that they are growing, that they are valued, and that they are

respected while also introducing some of the most empowering, critical elements of

historical thinking.
 The top priorities for my first week were more general and philosophical matters

concerning the ways I could establish the classroom culture that I want. Intuitively, it

makes sense that the beginning of a new school year is an important time to establish

attitudes, beliefs, and goals that you want your classroom to have. Larry Ferlazzo

emphasizes this in his online article about fostering growth mindsets (Ferlazzo, 2010).

For numerous reasons, Carol Dwecks idea of growth mindset is one of my highest

priorities as far as classroom culture is concerned. In addition to having demonstrated

benefits for student learning achievement overall, having a growth mindset as opposed

to a fixed mindset can be especially valuable for marginalized students facing some sort

of stereotype or other low expectations that are detrimental to their learning potential.

According to Dweck, studies demonstrate that having a growth mind-set is especially

important for students who are laboring under a negative stereotype about their abilities,

such as Black or Latino students or girls in mathematics or science classes (Blackwell

et al., 2007; Good et al., 2003; Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002). Adopting a growth

mind-set helps those students remain engaged and achieve well, even in the face of

stereotypes. (Dweck, 2010) Considering this, I would argue that instilling these beliefs

in the classroom is particularly necessary in an urban context like Philadelphia with a

high concentration of black students, english language learners, and students living in

poverty all of whom face what Claude Steele terms stereotype threat, (Steele, 1997)

that is, negative stereotypes about their intellectual abilities and educational aptitudes

that are powerful sources of stress and pressure that harm their learning and

performance.
 So, I decided that my first-day lesson plan should include specific reference to

Dwecks concept of growth mindsets along with a goals-setting activity during my

opening presentation about myself and my philosophy as a teacher. This falls in step

with Ferlazzos fourth suggestion about explicitly teaching students about the

malleability of their brains in order to build a culture that celebrates challenges and

struggles and frames effort, not pre-existing talent, as the key to learning. Let students

know that when they are practicing hard things their brains are forming new connections

and making them smarter. (Ferlazzo, 2012) Incorporating a goals-setting element into

this part of the class is meant to reinforce the growth-mindset ethic further by having

students set goals first so that they can shape plans, with feedback from me, for how

they can best improve certain skills and knowledge.

In addition to goal-setting essential questions, I designed an icebreaker activity

where students share something they are already an expert in and something they want

to become an expert in, which again, is another effort to establish growth mindsets, but

also stems from my aforementioned interest in differentiated instruction. One of

Tomlinson and McTighes (2006) big assertions is that teachers in effectively

differentiated classrooms are hunters and gatherers of information about what propels

learning for each student and that includes [garnering] information on students

interests, dreams, and aspirations. This strategy of making a genuine connection with

each student underpins numerous education theories I read this summer. Tomlinson

and McTighe suggest that this is not just a key prerequisite for differentiation and

addressing classroom diversity, but that it is also an essential tool for classroom
management, Weinstein endorses this method of classroom management as well

saying that, most problems of disorder in the classroom can be avoided if teachers

foster positive student-teacher relationships. (Weinstein, 2010) To this end, and as yet

another promotion of growth mindset, I tried to ensure my week one unit plan

established high expectations for my students. By allowing students the freedom to

bring in their own examples of historical controversies, for example, my intent is to

communicate a sense of trust in their judgement and a respect for their interests and

prior knowledge. Likewise, by developing classroom rules and values as a group

activity rather than as a unilateral decision by the teacher my hope is that the students

will get a sense of my respect for them as agents and thinkers, which I hope would help

forge those crucial positive relationships that Weinstein swears are the most powerful

tool for effective classroom management.

While I ultimately decided that I wanted to address mindset up front, I continue to

have questions and concerns over when and how to introduce important meta concepts

like mindsets or identity. A certain logic suggests that ideas that I think will be

especially important all year long should be introduced as early as possible in order to

avoid spending valuable class time without the desired attitudes and culture being

promoted or without students grasping key concepts. However, the first day, and even

the first week seems potentially too early in the year for students to be engaged enough

to listen to more philosophical or abstract lessons. Waiting to introduce a major concept

until later in the year could mean, on the one hand, that the students have had time to

settle into the classroom environment and might engage with the concept more deeply,
but on the other hand, introducing a big tenet of the class later on in the year could

result in confusion and could fail to properly emphasize some of the biggest ideas of

my class. This is a question that I will no doubt continue to have for years I shape and

order my units and lessons.

This uncertain in timing and order-of-operations extended to the later parts of my

lesson plan, which started to bring in more content-specific thinking and curricular

material. In a history class specifically, the biggest curricular questions I have revolve

around arranging and whether I should do that thematically or chronologically. In the

end, I opted for starting my class with more abstract, higher level critical thinking skills

instead of jumping right into the more information-heavy units. I wanted to begin my US

History class with a week about critical skills like analyzing sources for bias and

comparing and contrasting historical claims for a few reasons. First, because I think a

focus on how history is done, by historians and by media and laypeople, is essential to

encourage inquiry and critical lenses in the students above rote memorization. Second,

in teaching US History, above all I want to nurture my students critical prowess and

their political consciousness so that they can better investigate their own questions as

they grow into adulthood. As I mentioned above, this rationale comes from a

commitment to justice and equity, and also recalls Henry Girouxs idea of teachers as

transformative intellectuals. In his book on this idea he implores equality-oriented

teachers to be agents of change and empowerment through, Utilizing forms of

pedagogy that are emancipatory in nature; that is, using forms of pedagogy that treat
students as critical agents; making knowledge problematic; utilize critical and affirming

dialogue; and make the case for struggling for a qualitatively better world for all people.

And he goes on to say that this points to the need to give students an active voice in

their learning experience, (Giroux, 1988) which is something I sought to do in multiple

ways in my week-one unit. By starting the year off by addressing historical thinking

skills and problematizing the knowledge that the textbook contains I was making a

choice to follow Girouxs guidance and to have a political pedagogy. By giving students

an active role in their own learning, I intended to align myself as a transformative

intellectual teacher.

Through producing a neighborhood ethnography and researching the relationship

between the high school I will be placed in this year and its surrounding area, I

discovered a great deal about the extreme challenges facing the School District of

Philadelphia and most of its students. Given that Philly has some of the highest rates of

new immigration and deep poverty in the country, it is fair to say that its schools and

students are in some of the most difficult positions in the country. All this is to say that

the need for teachers to have growth mindsets, differentiated instruction, and a

transformative attitude is especially vital here, and as I move into the classroom this fall

and actually implement unit plans, these will be some of the thoughts that will guide me.
 References

Dweck, C. (2010). Mind-sets and Equitable Education. Principal Leadership, 10(5),

26-29.

Ferlazzo, L. (2012, October 15). Response: Classroom Strategies to Foster a Growth

Mindset. Retrieved July 4, 2017, from
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_ferlazzo/2012/10/response_
classroom_strategies_to_foster_a_growth_mindset.html

Giroux, H. A., Freire, P., & McLaren, P. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: toward a
critical pedagogy of learning. Granby, MA: Bergin and Garvey.

Steele, C.M. (1997) A Threat in the Air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and
performance. June, American Psychologist 52 (6), 613 - 629.

Tomlinson & McTighe (2006). Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by

Design: Connecting Content and Kids. Assoc for Supervision and Curriculum
Development.

Weinstein, C. (2010) Middle and High School Classroom Management: Lessons from
Research and Practice. McGraw Hill Education.