Well Structured Units and Lessons

Well-Structured Units and Lessons: "Adapts as needed and implements standards-based units comprised of well-structured lessons with challenging tasks and measurable outcomes; appropriate student engagement strategies, pacing, sequence, resources, and grouping; purposeful questioning; and strategic use of technology and digital media; such that students are able to learn the knowledge and skills defined in state standards/local curricula."

How I did this: It is critical to student success that the lessons they are receiving are thoughtful, clear, and well-practiced. My personal favorite way to think when lesson planning is to remember what it was like to not know what it is you are teaching. I find that this helped me to determine what I expect the outcome of my lesson to be. Once you determine the final product of the unit and/or lesson you can effectively work backward. The understanding by design framework (UBD) is what I effectively use for lesson planning as an individual teaching phenomena-based science education. I first had to identify what I wanted my students to be able to do by the end of the unit, this helped to frame learning targets as well as to think of the flow of the unit. I then was able to come up with different modes of communication students could use to demonstrate understanding or mastery of what I wanted them to do/know. From here I could effectively plan the learning activities that I would be using in the classroom.