Collaboratively+Built+UbD+unit+plans

Put the unit plans here. These are the ones you worked on with your team while in class. Please include this information:

Title Possible Grade Level Possible Subject Area Names are optional

Tess, Jan, Megan 5th Grade Literature Unit

teachingprimarysources.illinoisstate.edu/.../**haiku**s/**haiku**s**rubric**.doc Tess, Jan and Megan- I love the format!! I dont know how you did this. Amy found a template for UBD but it was a PDF and we couldn't edit it. It is so neat and clean!! It looks like something you would find in the text book. The understandings and questions are clear adn very measurable and make it easy to then see how to identify if they are being met. I would be ery courious to see how students went about recreatuing thier stories without courage. I find it interesting that through backword design you have the students work backwords to construct meaning via deconstruction. Nikki Frank

Tess, Jan and Megan, The strategies and approaches utilized in these Ubd lessons abound. The unit displays ways to approach various learning styles. A class, after experiencing this focus of courageous topic and assignment, will have more relationship and understanding of each other to build upon for the remainder of the year. You are giving the learners of this environment tools to apply not only across subjects in school but in life. Sarah

Hey Ladies, What a detailed unit! I'd have no trouble jumping into your classrooms as a sub and teaching this unit. Haiku writing and studying can to be so fun and I really liked the way to connected to a particular social lesson, very clever. BTW: Have you read //Dogku// by Clements? It's the cutest story, all written in haiku. Check it out! Silena

Tess, Jan and Megan,

I love the social aspect of this unit. You were able to introduce a tangible literary skill while incorporating larger social meaning. You have the overarching and the specifics. The activities were well laid out and were not overly complicated yet maintained their objective. Well done! Mike

Tess, Jan and Megan,

I feel that you guys have a very thought provoking unit that any primary grade student would enjoy doing. That is why I like it so much. Your activities are perfect because they can be done by anyone. Your ideas/thoughts are clear as well as being thorough and relevant. I love the 3,2,1 activity. It can be easily duplicated by anyone coming into your classroom. Great job. Ryan

Tess, Jan and Megan,

I liked your lesson plan very much as a whole. Your essential questions were very on point. The overarching theme of having the students think about courage and recognizing how that fits into the literature that they are reading was cool. Also, having them understand what courage looks like as well as when one needs to be courageous was very thoughtful. Eric

Tess, Jan, and Megan,

I really think the best part about your unit is that you approached the essential questions through various formats that ensured that all of your students would be able to develop the understandings you were striving for in the unit. Also, I really liked how you looked at courage and related it to your students own life and had them find examples of everyday courage. I really think this is important because you are teaching students that living couragesly doesn't mean they have to step out of thier day to day lives.

Chris

Tess, Jan and Megan I love the connections that you made within this literature unit - It is really well done :) I have to comment on the exercise that you had used in regards to giving the students the scenerio of what they would do in the situation of experiencing bullying first hand. I have actually used something similiar in my health class several times over the last few years and it has resulted in some extremeley useful discussion for both students that have been bullied and those that are the bullying. Its great to have them talk about it openly like your lesson introduced. Great stuff!! Sheryl

Tess, Jan and Megan Funny that our groups did similar projects, both based on literacy and courage. I really like the idea of students studying this theme and the fact that our units had a similar theme yet had different aspects and activities shows how many different things you can do with it. Nice job!

Meghan

Lindsay, Sarah, Eric 5th Grade lesson on Social Skills

Lindsay, Sarah, Eric-

I love the concept and think this is so important you children to understand. Kids who feel they can make a difference often do. I think it is so important that we can spell out to children that the decisions they make impact not only themselves and the people directly involved with them, but that thier actions have a ripple effect that makes an impression far bigger than they can measure. Children need to be encouraged to reach for the stars. Nikki Frank

Lindsay, Sarah, Eric- I love this unit! It is so important for children to realize that they can make a difference from an early age. Your unit does a really good job of showing how even one person can make a difference. It is very powerful and I think all of your assessments revolove around students bigger picture of communities and making a difference which I think is very great. Nice job! This is a great unit for students and it will transfer into other areas of their life. -Tess

Hey Guys,

Wow! You covered a ton of standards in one unit! Way to pack a UbD punch. (: I liked the idea of a school community mirroring communities at large; very transferable. I thought it was interesting that you created your own UbD design format instead of using a template. I think that shows how faithful you were to the backwards design in that you were able to recreate it. Thank you for an interesting unit! Silena

Lindsay, Sarah, Eric,

Great job on covering standards. As Silena mentioned above, you covered a great deal of standards and I feel that doing so is important for any good lesson. All of you did a great job in explaining in detail what is expected of the students and also what they will be learning. The component that I loved the most was the format. It is different than what we did and I feel that yours is much easier to create and subsequently follow. I will certainly utilize your framework for my unit. Congrats! Ryan

Lindsey, Sarah, Eric, Ditto on the formatting of this! You wrapped a lot up through UbD in this unit plan. I appreciate the importance of the lessons in this as well. The lessons will undoubtedly bring civic awareness and accountability concepts as well as a sense of empowerment to the kids. These are great lessons that tend to be overlooked in the classroom. Mike

Lindsey, Sarah, Eric

I really think that this unit would be a great way to start the year. Teaching kids about the differences they can make each and every day is important to building a succesful and open learning community in your classroom. Also, the integration of technology, skype, would be a great motivator for students and allows them ability to interact and explore what they have learned with others without all the hassle and expense of a field trip. Great Job!

Chris _ Lindsey, Sarah and Eric First I have to say that I liked the format that you used to present the info - I think it was easier to follow than the template that we used. Its nice to see thing presented in alternative formats. I also really liked your topic and think it is valuable and appropriate for so many age levels. Giving the students the opportunity to assess their own lives and environments to see how they show responsibility and accountable is wonderful. Sheryl __

Lindsay, Sarah, and Eric I think the concepts covered in your lesson are absolutely some of the most important concepts for students to learn in this day and age. I really appreciate the section in your unit about misconceptions. I think this is important to any lesson, but in this lesson I believe it is vital. This would be a great brainstorming activity for the students to do in the first part of this unit. Great Job! Amy

Lindsay, Sarah, Eric I really like that you guys chose this for your theme. In school, we don't always focus on social skills and this is what a lot of student struggle with at this age and these struggles are often carried with them into adulthood. Dealing with conflict is a great example of a focus area for 5th grade in my mind. The unit was in a format that was very easy to follow, which I'm sure will be appreciated by any teacher who looks at it! Meghan

Karen, Mike, Wendy 4th Grade lesson on math reasoning in real world problems



Karen, Mike and Wendy-

This unit is awesome! I am showing the 5th graders this Tuesday. This is the real world applications stuff that answers the question "why do I need to learn this?" What a terrific way to showcase their ability to problem solve and use multi-step word problems. I womder about the timeline. The lesson I did on problem solving hade only 4 variables and then within thoes variables there were other items to account for. I wonder how long it would take 4th graders to work through all the courses and dinner guests? Nikki Frank

Karen, Mike, Wendy- I LOVED this unit! I've never been a fan of math at all and this unit actually does a great job of making it interesting. I was always thinking "Why do I have to learn this?" in math class. The unit brings real life application right to the students. I think this unit would be fun but also really challenge the students. It measures the concepts that you wanted it to measure and I think it would be a great final project and would bring more understanding than a regular test at the end of the unit. I really enjoyed it, well done. -Tess

Karen, Mike, Wendy,

Fantastic job creating an engaging unit filled with activities that make sense for students. The most "grabbing" part about this unit to me is the fact that the activities are actually applications that are in our everyday world. I think sometimes we forget that the transfer of knowledge is the most difficult part of learning. With this unit, the students can see how that transfer relates to their in school learning. Great job. Ryan

Karen, Mike and Wendy, My son loves math and would gravitate to this type of assignment. My daughter on the other hand does not embrace math, as willingly. With your approach to this unit via UbD you have created an appeal to the creative, planning aspect that would draw in others. Sometimes doing math within another focus makes it additionally engaging. By doing the real deal, true understanding is gained. At another school I used to be involved with, they had a thanksgiving feast where they invited family members. I think it would be wonderful to integrate your approach into a real authentic planning process for a larger scale event such as that within the students own school. Sarah

Karen, Mike and Wendy,

I think you nailed it with this lesson. I think many math teachers struggle with making math applicable to the real world. They feel that practice, practice and more practice is what is needed to have kids learn the concepts. When I grow up, I would like to be a math teacher and I often think how I would make things real for the students. This lesson gives me an idea of how I could do this. I hope you are not offended when I steal this and use it if I ever am able to teach math.

Eric

P.S. Mike, you did an admirable job taking my place with the group from Milwaukee.

Karen, Mike, and Wendy,

I think that the unit you developed is exactly what the Common Core standards are call teachers to do. You did a great job of putting math skills into real world scenerio that students could relate to and use. I am curious about the time frame of this unit and what the mixture of direct instruction, skill practice, and project worktime would look like once implemented in the classroom. Very thought provoking unit.

Chris

Karen, Mike, and Wendy, I had a student a few weeks back that complained that he hated story problems because they were hard... I told him that life was full of story problems. I think simply working through problems that are not clearly spelled out for the students builds 21st century learning skills. I think students should learn new math skills and then apply them immediately to real life situations, and this is exactly what you did! It gives meaning to something that seems vague and purposeless, and helps to create memorable experiences that causes students to not only know how to do multiplication, fractions, percentages, and division but when to use these skills. Way to go! Amy

Sheryl, Tiffannie and Ryan 4th Grade - Healthy Heart Unit

Shery, Tiffannie, Ryan- This is such a cool unit! I really like it and it should be a required part of every childs curriculum. The excercises and the healthy menu for a week really stood out to me because these teach children habits that will improve their health and things that they hopefully keep with them the rest of their life. Not to be mean but I feel like kids only eat junk food and sit and play video games so a unit that teaches them healthy habits and actually has them plan their own meals is something that will really benefit them and has a great real life application. Nice work! -Tess

Sheryl, Tiffannie, and Ryan, I'm not gonna lie, this is an excellent UbD unit! It's VERY well done. The organization, essential questions, activities, rubric, all of it was very well done. I could easily step into your class any day and be able to teach from these plans. I will be using your UbD as a model as I work on my individual unit. Thanks! Silena

Sheryl, Tiffannie, Ryan, The unit was built beautifully and the steps along the way worked well under the greater objective. This is a great overarching goal and also teaches a lot of transferable understanding of the human body. Most kids hear about how they should take care of themselves but this is a great way to explain why they should. The part I liked was the mentioning of the costs involved in medicine as it relates to health. The lessons learned will carry over into their personal lives and might even help them live a healthier lifestyle. Mike

Sheryl, Tiffannie and Ryan,

Like Silena, I'm not gonna lie either. In my personal life, maintaining a healthy lifestyle is one of my major priorities. As I look around the school that I work in, I can see that the students do not share the same belief that I do. I very much like how you made it simple to understand that the heart is the major component to health. Rather than focussing on eating and exercising and medicine and sleep etc. I think that your concepts will be more easily understood and possibly even help the students think about their health. Very nicely done.

Eric

Sheryl, Tiffannie, and Ryan,

This is a great unit! In particular I really appreciated the possible misconceptions section. What incredibly useful information to have at your fingertips as you teach throughout this lesson. The Marian lesson plan has us outline prior knowledge, but I think misconceptions are great! Amy

Sheryl, Tiffannie, and Ryan

What I really about this unit is how you laid out the essential questions, understandings, skills, and knowledge so directly. I could pick this up and start to create learning activities very easily without the activities you provided. I think your learning activities directly correlate with your enduring understandings and give students the skills and knowledge needed to live healthy and quality lives.

Chris

Sheryl, Tiffannie, Ryan Great unit! Such an important area of study for kids since let's face it: we live in a state that is stereotyped for being unhealthy. The heart healthy menu and the weekly exercise routine is a great thing to have them do since many of them are not learning this in their homes. Nice work! Meghan

Amy, Nikki, Meghan 3rd grade Literacy Unit on Courage Hi Girls, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that or all of you are currently taking Lu's lit class? Am I right? (: The list of possible books for the unit are a gold mine, especially because you chose books from a variety of reading levels. Thank you for putting it together. I liked the way you had one assessment rubric but also included the self-assessment rubric. The unit almost seemed a little overwhelming as I was reading until I read your day by day chart. That really helped me cement how the unit would look as I was teaching it. Nice job! Silena

Amy, Nikki, Meghan,

Fantastic job on your activities section for your unit. I loved to see the amount as well as quality of activities that you all put together for your unit. The component that I liked most was the rubric. Simplicity. I can't really see the students being confused on the type of quality of work that they are expected of. That is very important and you guys nailed it. Also, great job on displaying the t-charts and venn diagram so we as fellow teachers will know what they are supposed to look like. That is very important for anyone teaching this to their students. Great job. Ryan

Amy, Nikki, Meghan First off, thanks for the great ideas for my unit in Lu's class. If you don't mind I might utilize some of your ideas. You were quite thorough and the lessons were spot on to your objective. Thank you in advance and job well done. I too, appreciated the day by day breakdown of the lessons. The whole unit was well crafted and concise. Mike Amy, Nikki and Meghan, As noted by others, the day by day presentation of information is clear and precise. Your use of graphic organizers, rubrics and additional tools lead to additional real life applications. These students will walk away from this unit with useful tools to apply to their organizational approaches in any genre or subject area. Wonderfully done and complete! Sarah

Amy, Nikki and Meghan Wow what a great unit - you can tell that you put a lot of work into this! You had so many great ideas and parts to this unit that all seemed to work well to provide great understanding and experiences for the students. I really liked all the connections you had the students make to real life and also to literature with writing poems and reading different stories. You did a great job in the layout of the unit also in that it was easy to follow and to see the building of the unit. Really a wonderful job! Sheryl

Civil Rights Power Movement 8th grade social studies Marissa, Chris, Silena

Marissa, Chris, and Selina-

You have an amazing array of activities and they all tie into the standards and essencial question. I like your layout and found it very easy to follow. If a sub had even just the calander they could teach the class and know if it was going well. Nikki Frank

Marissa, Chris, Silena

Deeply thought provoking, stimulating, organized and thoroughly planned are all ways to describe your Social Studies UbD unit. Each day there is a new "hook" that makes it all come to life for the students. Social Studies in your classrooms would be nothing short of a social relations, relationship building, 21st century skill laboratory!!! Sarah

Marissa, Chris and Silena, Great unit! I love your hook, the blue eyes brown eyes experiment would really get children interested and also would show them how everyone can be affected by predjeduce. I like the variety of different activities, I'm sure every student would find a part of this unit that they would really enjoy. This is such a powerful unit and individual lessons, I'm sure it would provoke a lot of meaningful discussions. I would love to use this unit in my future class. -Tess

Marissa, Chris, and Silena, I would use this unit tomorrow! I really appreciate your essential questions. I think they are so indicative of ever major change that has occurred in history and will easily transfer to other eras throughout a student's learning. It also speaks so clearly to our roles as citizens as the students examine the people who have come before us. This could very quickly lead to discussions of current social justice issues. Amy

Marissa, Chris and Silena,

I was very impressed with the concepts that you are teaching in this lesson. I think that if this was taught early in the year, you could have a background for a whole host of other conflicts and issues throughout history. This could provide the backdrop and the basis of many future lessons. I would like to also add that the blue eye vs. brown eye is a great activity. I have seen this on video with a large group and it is very powerful. The discussion that ensued was full of energy and emotion. I had planned on using this activity at some point during social studies when I become a real teacher.

Eric

Marissa, Chris, and Selina

This has always been a topic of importance yet a touchy subject amongst many people. The blue vs. brown eye comparison is a safe and effective way of dealing with an ugly yet vital part of our history. You documented your unit well and I would feel confident teaching this with your write-up. While reading through your unit I kept thinking about Star Trek. Yeah, I know this places me in a league of dorks but their social commentary on civil rights in light of the historical timeframe was actually progressive. The brown eye vs. blue eye comparison reminded me of the half black and white vs. the half white and black episode. I feel like giving myself a wedgie right now just typing this. :) Mike

Marissa, Chris and Selina What a truely awesome job you guys did - really impressive! I am very sure that I will use this in the future. You were so very concise and detailed which is amazing and makes it so easy for someone to really know what you were trying to accomplish in the unit. I particularly liked the writing prompts and the exercise to have the students use the skit process for vocabulary. It is obvious you worked well together to put this together as it flows very well! Sheryl

Marissa, Chris & Selina I love this theme! I think it's a positive thing that we still teach young students about MLK Jr. and the rest of the Civil Rights Movement. The unit is very detailed which makes it easy for anyone to look at it and be able to teach it; I would love to use it in my class at some point. Nicely done, guys! Meghan