Standard 3: Planning For Differentiated Instruction

The competent teacher plans and designs instruction based on content area knowledge, diverse student characteristics, student performance data, curriculum goals, and the community context. The teacher plans for ongoing student growth and achievement.

This artifact is an Understanding by Design unit plan for Sea Bear A Journey for Survival. Within this artifact, you will find standards, goals, and activities. This unit plan was completed in four weeks for a social studies methods class.

This artifact is an important part of my portfolio because it shows that I can develop a unit plan spanning different content areas with a central theme. As Standard 3 states, "A competent teacher plans and designs instruction based on content area knowledge, diverse student characteristics, student performance data, curriculum goals." This unit plan was designed with Illinois State Standards in mind as well as the coordinating activities for this lesson plan.

As a result of creating this unit plan, I have learned how to complete a unit plan from idea to conclusion. Designing this unit plan has taught me what types of activities are appropriate for a specific unit plan as well as different types of assessments that are available to use. I believe I will be coming back to the Understanding by Design Template throughout my teaching career. Using this template allowed me to really focus on my end goals while making sure all aspects were aligned to state standards.