1. What was the biggest takeaway from building the unit?

My biggest takeaway planning the unit was how far back I needed to "blow up the picture" to think of big ideas. It was a really intersting exercise to ask what are the big ideas and essential questions of teaching this unit (or any unit) and a step that is often skipped if you go straight to the standards. I am a tree person a lot of the time so it was good to spend time in the forest. I am also a wordy person, so I enjoyed the challenge of distilling all of my thoughts into phrases and questions.

1. Describe a connection you’ve made across two or more of the areas in the unit.

I am proud of my connections between the goals and the standards. I currently worrk at a content first school meaning what our kids need and what we find in the content comes first and after that we se how we are doing standards wise. What was interesting is that I was naturally able to pull in many applicable standards after making my goals. This was a sign to me that what I want my 7th graders to know and what I think their next steps are is also in line with the standards. Pretty neat.

1. What would you think about for the next time you build a unit?

Next time, I would write my goals first. After I asked myself, what do I really want kids to know and do, the big ideas and essential questions became much mor clear.

1. What would you tell people for next semester working on this project? (or for me)

While I know many people plan a hypothetical unit, I found this to be a really helpful pre-learning segment exercise. Using this template really helped me organize my thinking about the big picture so that when it comes to my learning segment, I am ready to dive into the specifics that make sense within the unit.