Developing a Unit Planning Routine

Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson the students should be able to;
 Explain what Unit Planning is
 Give the importance of Unit Planning in the students’ learning
 Analyze how to map concepts for unit planning.

What is Unit?
• A unit is a planned learning experience of moderate length (i.e., taking place over
a series of days or weeks) that clearly identifies concepts and skills students will
be learning.

Foundations and Principles

• Unit planning should provide a framework that enables all students to be
successful in learning important concepts and skills.
• Concept mapping and organizing learning around questions helps make explicit
what is important for students to learn.

Planning for Student Understanding

• In the curriculum planning model of Wiggins and McTighe (1998), teachers are
invited to be designers of learning.

For unit planning the design process can be divided into three phrases:
1. What students should know, understand and be able to do?
This question asks you to think about the content to be addressed and to
determine the most important “enduring understandings” and processes that student
should take with them from a particular unit of instruction.
2. What evidence will I collect?
This question asks you to determine whether students have increased their
understanding of the concept(s).
3. What “enabling knowledge” and skills are needed?
The third and final stage in the planning process is to develop learning
experiences.

Planning for Student Diversity

• As noted by Vaughn, a well-known researcher in the field of learning disabilities,
we do not have to worry about the Robin Hood effect, robbing from the high
 achievers to give the lower-achieving students the experiences they need for
success in secondary content classes.

Up-Front Planning
• This planning which can help identify content and instructional procedures of
most benefit to the widest range of learners, is most effectively and efficiently
done at the course and unit level of instruction.

Shared, Explicit Expectations

• This planning leads to a shared student-teacher understanding and acceptance
of clear and attainable goals enhances student performance (Arends, 1991).

Integrated Curriculum
• Is structured in a way that helps students connect concepts and skills across
disciplines.

Content Integration
• Uses a conceptual focus to create an interdisciplinary or real-life perspective
around a common theme, issue or problem of study.

Process Integration
• Allows students to apply common skills or thinking processes (such as writing
process or using the scientific method to gather data) across subjects (Erikson,
1996).

Knowing and Doing

The Unit Organizer

• Helps contextualize the unit by relating unit content to previous and future units
and to bigger course ideas.
• Helps students understand the unit’s main ideas through a map that paraphrases
the “big idea” of the unit and displays the structure and relationships of key unit
concepts.
• Is a tool that allows teachers to plan by determining essential questions that can
guide student learning. The Unit Organizer also allows students to generate
questions to help them focus on and identify the types of thinking they will need
to use to answer questions.
• Provides a structure for students to track assignments.
Making Connections
• Cognitive theorists show that a student’s existing knowledge base and immediate
prior learning is the foundation for future learning and that teacher planning
should take this into consideration (Borko & Putnam, 1998).

Key Concepts and Concept Mapping

• Concept mapping is a metacognitive tool that can significantly change the way
a teacher plans. By mapping a course or unit, a teacher must determine the most
central concepts students should learn.
• Concept mapping makes the curriculum “conceptually transparent” (Novak,
1990) to the teacher who can then share this visual representation of course
content with students. For students, a concept map can be the basis for
beginning to make meaning out of abstract concepts by examining relationships
and with what is previously known.

A Sample Concept Map:

How to construct a Concept Map:
Concept mapping can be accomplished through a six-step procedure (Zimmaro &
Cawley, 1998).
1. Identify the idea or ideas you want to map.
2. Arrange concepts in a pattern that best represents the information.
3. Use a shape such as a rectangle, a circle, an oval, or a triangle to enclose each
term and concept.
4. Use straight lines to link related terms.
5. Label each line to identify the relationship between the two connected ideas.
6. Rework the map until it depicts the clearest and the most accurate picture of the
relationships between key concepts.

Identifying Unit Questions: Guiding Learning Through Questioning

• Questions are a way to organize and focus a unit.
Developing unit questions can help a teacher shrink the amount of information in
a unit by focusing on the essential information students will need in order to respond
to unit questions.
• Question are a way to stay true to the discipline under study.
Unit outcomes described in a series of questions can ensure that relevance is
couched in experiences that remain true to the discipline under study.

Course and Unit Questions:

 • Question are natural means of monitoring progress and structuring learning.
Unit questions can guide the types of assessments and teaching learning
activities a teacher uses to gauge and promote student progress.
• Questions are a way to motivate students.
Question that are provocative, puzzling, and connected to students’ lives
are
likely to get their attention and hook them into learning.

Developing Higher-Order Thinking Skills By Examining Relationships

Higher-order thinking is based on the ability to elaborate and manipulate
information in relation to conceptual frameworks (Newmann & Wehlage, 1993).

Specifying Important Assignments

Teaching students to use organizers, as well as schedules and planning
systems, can be one step in helping them plan, manage their time, identify materials
needed to complete assignments (Bryan & Sullivan-Burstein, 1997; Patton, 1994), and
develop important skills needed for successful in postsecondary education and adult
life.

Planning with the Unit Organizer

• The Unit Organizer teaching routine, based on the concept-based planning was
developed as part of a collaborative research project with content teachers who
were instructing classes of students with a range of achievement levels.
• The structure of the Unit Organizer helps teacher think about important concepts
and their relationship within and across units of instruction.
• The Unit Organizer also aids teachers in organizing student learning by posting
questions and posting a schedule while introducing the unit that can guide
students to focus their learning.

The Unit Organizer is a two-page form comprised 10 sections:

• Course Connections (Sections 1,2,3, and 4)
- Section 1, identifies the title of the current unit.
- Section 2, identifies the previous unit
- Section 3, identifies the next unit.
- Section 4, indicates a theme or idea that connects multiple units.
• Unit Map (Section 5)
- In this section, a concept map, or visual display of the content of the unit, is
constructed.
• Unit relationships and Self-Test Questions (Section 6 and 7)
 - These section specify the types of thinking teacher want students to do
about the key unit concepts.

• Unit Schedules (Section 8)

- This section lists the major assignments and activities for the unit, with
space to write in the date they are planned.

The Unit Organizer:

• Expanded Unit Map (Section 9)

- The expanded map allows for a more detailed view of the unit concepts.
• Additional Questions (Section 10)
 - The additional questions address the more specific information added in the
expanded unit map, and can deepen students’ understanding of the original unit self-
test questions.

Unit Organizer:

Teaching with the Unit Organizer

Teaching with the Unit Organizer is designed to enhance student organization,
understanding, and memory, as well as the quality of their responses to questions and
their belief in the value of learning content (University of Kansas, Center of Research on
Learning, 1994).

Cue-Do-Review
- is important not only because it provides a foundation for teaching strategically,
or explicitly telling students about routines and strategies that can help them learn, but
because it can also help students become better independent learners.

Cue: Pointing Out the Important Features of the Unit Organizer

First, students can be introduced to the Unit Organizer form. Some teachers
display a blank form and ask students to describe what they see and relate the sections
of the Unit Organizer to what they already know.
Second, a filled-in, or partially filled-in Unit Organizer can be introduced to help
students “read” the form. Again, asking questions as students explore the form can help
them actively engage in the process.
Finally, student can be introduced to the Unit Organizer that the teacher has
developed for a specific unit the class will be studying. This is usually done with a
partially or fully filled-in Unit Organizer.

Do: Use a Unit Organizer to Introduce a Unit

• Create a Context (Section 1-4)
- First, the teacher discusses how this unit connects with the course as a whole
and then specifically with what has been studied previously.
• Recognize Content Structures (Section 5)
- Using the basic unit map, students are encouraged to examine how concepts
are related to each other and how key concepts can be expanded and elaborated.
• Acknowledging Unit Relationships (Section 6)
- Students are ask to do different types of thinking important for the unit to study.
• Frame Unit Questions (Section 7)
- Unit questions can be a combination of teacher and student questions.
• The Content to Tasks (Section 8)
 - The unit schedule is introduced as the unit is introduced.

Review: Using the Unit Organizer throughout the Unit

Once the unit has been introduced, the teacher can use it regularly during
instruction to help students monitor progress, review what they have learned, or add
concepts or questions to the expanded unit map.

Assessment: Is Everyone on the Journey?

Why Assess your Students?

Typically, assessment should give a teacher the following information during instruction:
• An indication of gaps in student knowledge and skills that may need to be taught.
• The effectiveness of unit content and processes for student learning.
• The identification of students whom may need extra help.
How Do You Know If Your Students Are Learning?
Wiggins and McTighe (1998) have identified an assessment continuum consisting of:
• Informal interactions
• Observing students and engaging in dialogues
• Tests and quizzes, academic prompts
• Performance tasks and projects
Making Connections:
Implementing the Unit Organizer
1. Here are the big ideas to get started:
• Concept mapping and organizing learning around questions can be useful
unit-planning and teaching tools.
• The Unit Organizer is a teaching routine based on concept mapping that
can help you plan how to teach what is important in a unit of study and
can provide context and structure that guide student learning.
2. What you need.
• Copies of national, state, or local standards for courses you teach, or are
likely to teach.
• A textbook or other appropriate materials you are likely to use with
students.
• Examples of concept maps and completed unit organizers.
3. Evaluate your work.
• Consider your unit map within the context of learning goals identified in
standards for your content area.
• Share your map or maps with a colleague.
4. Next steps:
• Develop unit questions to accompany your maps.

Activity (Essay for 10 pts. each)

1. What do you think is the importance of unit planning in teaching academically
diverse students?
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2. What modifications and accommodations you should consider in the unit

planning when teaching academically diverse students?
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3. Is unit planning in teaching regular students and in teaching students with special
needs are the same? In what way?

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Assessment

Directions: Choose a specific topic in any subject, then create a concept map on how
you are going to teach that specific lesson to your students.