Unit Plan Templates

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Permalink Reply by Alline Sada on November 9, 2009 at 10:58am

Hi!
I developed the curriculum for grades 3 - 9 at my school, This is how I organized it.

I know I have 32 weeks per year (+ or - a few due to holidays and field trips)
So I plan my units for the whole year.
SAMPLE YEARLY PLAN

Then, I break down each lesson into 2 sessions, since I see them twice a week.
SAMPLE LESSON PLAN

Some projects are longer than others.
Some weeks have 2 tasks.
Others have one task that has several parts.

Then I upload it to Engrade.com (Online Course Builder and Gradebook, free and simple!) to give students access to the documents... and parents! (edu2.0 is also easy to use)
ENGRADE SAMPLE

When on task takes more than one class, I tried to break it down into parts or steps and make the students accountable for a specific step each lesson.

For example...
Task: Creating a poster using Fireworks

Day 1: Plan in notebook
Instructions: Creating a poster using Fireworks
Assessment: Creating a poster using Fireworks Rubric
Reference: Visual Literacy: unity, emphasis
Samples: Movie Posters

Day 2: Background (Change of Hue)
Instructions: Change of Hue
Assessment: Checklist
Reference: hues.doc
Samples: Warhol.jpg

Day 3: Foreground/Main Character (using the Pen Tool & managing Layers)
Instructions: Using the Pen Tool
Assessment: Artwork Quality Rubric
Reference: Youtube: Vectoring (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhNyTS0KgYQ)
Samples: Warhol.jpg

Day 4: Text (Styles, Format, Size)
Instructions: Using the Text Tool
Assessment: Artwork Quality Rubric / Checklist for required Texts
Reference: text_effects.doc
Samples: texts.jpg

Day 5: Final Touches
Review Instructions and final rubric
Instructions: Creating a poster using Fireworks
Assessment: Creating a poster using Fireworks Rubric

Day 6: Peer Assessment / Presentation
Assessment: Peer Checklist
This day they turn it in to me.

Hope this helps!

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Permalink Reply by Justin Eames on November 9, 2009 at 11:03am

Wow Alline. Thanks so much for these resources. I hope to take a closer look at them tonight at home.

You rock,
Justin

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Permalink Reply by Alline Sada on November 9, 2009 at 1:42pm

I find it easier to plan by skills, this way the content can be applied to any subject. I gave my teachers a calendar for the software so they know what projects we could do when and they can also plan accordingly.

If in Science the students are learning about cells, I'll just do the theme of the project using those images, vocabulary or texts. This way I teach and asses COMPUTER SKILLS and the subject teacher can check CONTENT.

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Permalink Reply by Kelly A. Kronfeld on November 10, 2009 at 4:16am

Hi Alline,

We are in the process of creating a technology curriculum roadmap at my school as well, for ages early childhood through 8th grade. I have some questions about your rubrics. Where do you get them? And/or do you use general ones or are they more specific to the topic you are teaching?

Any feedback you could give would be appreciated. Thanks!

Regards,
Kelly

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Permalink Reply by Alline Sada on November 10, 2009 at 4:52pm

Hi Kelly,

We designed our own rubrics. We have general rubrics and task-specific rubrics.

Assessment is an issue no matter what or where you teach. The use of technology-related rubrics has been a work in progress, here's the story.

We began planning considering what our school wanted, kids who could use and enjoy the current technologies efficiently. But it also wanted the environment of the class to serve as a break from the tests and studying of the core subjects.

So with this in mind, my colleague and I came up with lists for what we called "Essential Skills". These refer ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY to functions or tools on the software. We basically decided what kids should know and be able to do per grade level (Introduce, Reinforce, Independent Users).
SAMPLE ESSENTIAL SKILLS

Then, we made lists per grade of what it was that we were going to teach. We took out the Standards and Benchmarks and began designing tasks which addressed our standards and included our skills. We wrote checklists for the skills and rubrics for anything subjective that would need to be considered on the task or product (such as artistry, unity, quality, emphasis, etc.).
SAMPLE LESSON (Student Copy)

We have general rubrics for ALL artwork, presentations, written papers, etc. These are shared with other members of the staff which are encouraged to use, but not forced to do so. We are now at a point were School-wide Rubrics will be implemented for products and tasks.

We also noticed that teachers were not asking students for products that accurately showcased what they were able to do. So we began passing out our lists of skills and sample projects to teachers so that they could required students to apply the computer skills and continue to practice them. For example, once students have been taught to change the line spacing, then 1.5 spacing is required on all written work. When students can use interaction on a presentation, then they are required to have a "clickable table of contents".

Grading and Scoring was a tough decision... We [as a school community] decided to GRADE only Computer Skills. We ASSESS everything, but we do not SCORE everything. Our philosophy is that students need feedback, not scores.

Students are encouraged to keep progressing on the rubrics as part of their personal growth. Artistry should be nurtured and takes time to develop. Computer Skills, on the other hand, can either be executed or not. So basically I just walk around the classroom meeting with each of my students frequently to analyze their products and brainstorm with them solutions about each of the points on the rubric (make images larger to get the point across, use more subtle colors, make movie transitions faster, etc.).

I hope this helps!

Regards, Alline

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Permalink Reply by Kelly A. Kronfeld on November 10, 2009 at 7:11pm

Hi Alline,

Hope this helps is sort of an understatement - this is terrific! This is exactly in-line with what I was thinking and how this could work. Thank you so much for the feedback. This is going to be so helpful!

Most sincerely,
Kelly

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Permalink Reply by Alline Sada on November 10, 2009 at 8:56pm

Sorry about the broken links, I was trying out something new.
Ha, ha,ha guess it didn't work!

Sample Essential Skills
Artistry Rubric
Sample Lesson (Student Copy)
Grade/Score

PS. This system is very helpful when dealing with TONS of kids (I have 350+ students), it's student and parent friendly. They can easily keep track of what they can and cannot do. So when Report Card time comes around, my grades are not "divinely inspired" and pretty much self-explanatory. This makes meetings run much more smoothly!

I have most of my resources online... Stop by and visit!
DIRECTORY OF EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES ON THE WEB

Direct link to the COMPUTER SOFTWARE RESOURCES

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Permalink Reply by Alison Robinson on November 11, 2009 at 6:47pm

Thank you Alline!! What a wealth of resources. I design my own lessons for grades PK-8 as well. I am working on re-vamping the curriculum and looking for a way to scale down, yet combine it all into one. It looks like you've got a great model here and I will definitely use some of your tips!! What model did you use for your Unit Plan template and how do you "house" it all? (if that makes sense)

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Permalink Reply by Alline Sada on November 11, 2009 at 11:11pm

My school doesn't require us to use any specific lesson plan template, so after a few different versions I came up with this one. Easy to read, short and specific. I'm better with short phrases and main ideas than long explanations and descriptions. So this is THE ONE for me!

Housing all of this...
Since I'm a webpage addict, I just turned all my documents into HTMLs, nothing fancy (just a quick SAVE AS), and linked everthing together. My Long Range Plan links to each lesson plan, and each activity is linked to the .doc, .ppt, .jpg or whatever I need for the lesson. The website got stored on the Intranet at school. It all fits on my USB flash drive, so I have my whole school year on my keychain!

It works great for me, if I change an activity I just overwrite the file and it's good to go for the following year. Others I "Save for Later", and give them to the kids for extra credit or time-fillers. These are mostly short goofy activities which they really enjoy! For example,
* Word Processor - Highlighter Tool
Word Seach - their faces light up when they finally figure out how to highlight vertically and diagonally

*Spreadsheets - Cell Formating
Graffiti - using column width, row height, background color to create their names

*Presentation - text effects, slide transitions, sound, images, links between slides
Baby Flash Cards - Flash cards on the theme of their choice to help practice vocabulary in English and German

*Google Earth Scavenger Hunts

For the Student Copies of the instructions for each lesson, I stuck to the WebQuest template (Task, Procedure, Sample, Assessment). I figured it would be easier for other teachers to begin integrating technology if the students were already familiar with the structure of the activities.

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Permalink Reply by Rashidah Tutashinda on November 10, 2009 at 5:13pm

I also teach technology and I have used the following site which you can custimize for your project and save your work. You are encouraged to join but do not have to to use template

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=NewRubric&module...

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Permalink Reply by Kelly A. Kronfeld on November 10, 2009 at 7:54pm

Hi Rashidah,

Thanks for the link. This will be helpful as well. I have used Rubistar before, and it is a fabulous site. I just haven't used it in a while, so thanks for the reminder!

Most sincerely,
Kelly

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