ALGEBRA CL Per.

3, 4, 6 LEA AMBION
UNIT 5: Linear Equations UNIT PLAN REFLECTION
Creating a unit plan has been a great reality check because I was under the assumption

that I could just take old lesson plans that my cooperating teacher had and adapt them a bit to fit

my teaching style. What I discovered was that a lot of the previous lesson that were stored,

consisted of direct instruction and I wanted to try to steer away from direction instruction to

attempt to make the lessons more interesting. So instead of using old lesson plans, I attempted to

create new ones that incorporated a little bit more student involvement to help students foster

their own understanding of the concepts. I was given a general outline of the sequence of

concepts that should be presented and then the rest was left up to me.

I created a note packet so that students have one thing that they can refer to when they

were taking a quiz or a test for this unit, however what I found was that even with all the

information in one place, with directions on how to solve problems laid out explicitly, students

continually ask for instructions on how to solve problems. Also, in order for me to create a

complete packet for the entire unit, I would have had to plan the entire unit in merely a week!

Seeing as that was not a possibility, I made a packet for the first week of lessons and had

students write additional notes on the back or attach additional worksheets to this packet. I do

feel that the note packet was beneficial to some students and I do feel that I will continue to

make more note packets, however, instead of trying to create my own, I will look into resources

that may already have the information that I want to give students and compile a packet. This

way, I save time in creating the packet and I have a better chance of including more items for the

complete lesson plan rather than for only a week.

During the entire unit, I wanted to incorporate more hands on activities so I started with

the white boards to see how the students handled school property and how they behaved when

there wasn’t an actual worksheet in front of them. I found that the success rate varied and it
ALGEBRA CL Per. 3, 4, 6 LEA AMBION
UNIT 5: Linear Equations UNIT PLAN REFLECTION
required more time and effort to ensure that students were staying on task rather than learning

anything from the activity. For the classes that I have, it was very difficult to consistently keep

everyone on task if I attempted to do a lesson as a whole class and found that for the most part,

students were more productive if they were given a worksheet and worked independently at their

own pace. So by the end of the unit, lessons became more worksheet oriented and directed

towards students working on their own while I go around and help students individually for those

that needed it.

In the future, I see myself conducting this unit a little bit differently. I am still set on

trying to teach this unit with a more student-centered approach maybe by starting out with a

project; however I do know that lesson plans do vary from class to class and from year to year. I

would also pace the class a little bit slower (of course adjusting to the actual class) so that I can

give enough time for students to ask questions, or to do more work in class. I did have quite a

few complaints that the class was at a faster pace than usual (but a lot of these complaints came

from students who do not stay attentive in class). This class also integrates a computer section

and it would have been great if I could have used this to my advantage however many students

are at different sections in the program and I would not have been able to refer to the computer

problems because it was possible that students would not know what I was talking about.

Overall, I am glad that I have this unit plan to refer to in the future if I was to teach this

unit again and although all of the exact lesson plans may not be applicable every year, I now

have all of the standards that this unit should meet as well as the outline of all the concepts that

should be covered this in this unit.