The biggest takeaway from building my unit is that I need to consider how lessons transition into each other. In order for students to fully absorb concepts they need to be presented the concept in several different ways. At the same we need to cover new content and push student’s learning. Creating smooth transitions between lessons, deciding what content to carry over, and what content to trust students to have learned are all aspects of unit planning I will need to continue to practice. I made a connection between expressing emotion and asking for help. A common scenario I see is that a student is overwhelmed by a task so they act inappropriately. Expressing your emotions may also mean asking for help and we as teachers need to be prepared for that. Next time I build a unit I want to make at least one lesson have a problem that students must try to solve throughout. Perhaps two puppets act out a skit and present a problem. Then students must spend the lesson working through this problem with help from the puppets. Our curriculum has so many transitions and changes in every lesson. I want to see how focusing on one problem would affect students’ learning. Something I would tell people is that it is okay to experiment and add elements that you do not know for sure will work. This is actually the best time to experiment! Maybe your lesson will not go the way you expected it to, but as we tell our students: it was not a failure if you learned something.

Wrap up on Unit Plans