Unit Plan

Below, you will find a planning template that can be used by a classroom teacher and a specialist in creating an inquiry learning experience. The partnership might be a teacher librarian with a classroom teacher, or could include a partnership of any specialist in the school such as art, music, P.E., counseling, instructional coaching, gifted and talented, or any other specialist. Resource: Try using the 18 think models from the book: Beyond Bird Units by David V. Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan. Book available from http://lmcsource.com The models are attached complete with their worksheets. An additional book from the same source: The Big Think can help with metacognitive reflections between adults and students after the unit is over.

Note: The template below can be used for both Inquiry learning experiences and project based learning experiences. The major difference between the two is the Inquiry usually is topical based vs. process based for project based learning. This in a PBS unit, phase one might be the planning phase of community based projects and phase two would be the implementation work.

Quick Lesson Plan Outline

Here is a summary of the steps in creating lesson plans that you can copy into your own template:

Old method
Overview of New Learning Experience
Goals and Objectives:
- Major Objectives:
  - Content Objectives: Often from history, science, literature or other content standards
  - Process Objectives: Often information literacy, technology that librarians want to embed
  - Co-Assessments for Each Objective
- Other Objectives to Watch
Essential Questions: can be created by adults and learners
Graphical chart/flow chart
The Cotaught Learning Activities for Phase one of the unit
What is the product for phase one and how will it be assessed?: Serial oral reports not allowed.
The Cotaught Learning Activities for phase 2 of the unit: Controled by a major higher level question that causes the work of phase one to be integrated into a deep learning experience.
What is the product for phase two of the unit and how will it be assessed?
What is the Culminating Activity for the unit?: Again, serial oral reports are not allowed. This activity concentrates both on what learners now know and what they can do with this knowledge .
The Cotaught Big Think: This comes after the unit is completely over and the grades assigned. It is a metacognitive look backwards by both adults and learners.
Archive
Defense

Unit Lesson Plan Title

Names of Adult Coaches

Think Model(s) used

Names of Partners

Old method: brief descriptive paragraph of the old way this unit has been or might have been taught. Usually a bird unit model.

Overview: brief description of the new entire learning experience.

Goals and Objectives (Two types...Major and Watch For):

(The Following format for creating the Goals and objectives plus the assessments of those items presume that there are at least two adults engaged in a partnership of the unit from initial planning, through the learning activities including a culminating activity, jointly assessing the results. After the unit is complete and assessed, the adult partners will conduct a Big Think reflection activity. The two adults might be the classroom teacher and the librarian. It might also be any other specialist in the school who is teaming with the classroom teacher on the learning experience. So while teaching alone, the classroom teacher may be covering material, the partners are working to make the learning experience a very deep experience for the learners are combining their efforts to help as many learners as they can to meet or exceed the expectations of both adult partners.) (Student input?)

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Major Objectives (Content and Process Plus Formative Assessments)

(We recommend no more than three but you can create your own form to fit your work)

Content Knowledge

(what learners need to know and be able to do as individuals and as collaborative groups) (may come from national, state, or local mandates) (student input?) (Content objectives can come from either partner or both)

Process Objectives:

(What just in time skills and technology will be folded into this objective to give a boost to what individuals and collaborative student groups know and are able to do) (may come from national, state, or local mandates) (student input?) (Process objectives can come from either partner or both) Librarians often use these tojectives t

Co-Assessment:

What formative and summative measures will be used by the partners to gauge the objectives above?

(may come from national, state, or local mandates) (student input?) (Include here formative assessments)

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Other Objectives to Watch

(These objectives will not receive the main focus of attention but may come to our attention during the learning experience. If any of them appear as problems, we may have to regroup during the learning experience to back tract a bit before proceeding; or, we might move more quickly if we observe that the learners are performing better than we expected. We may have to personalize learning a bit more depending on the progress of either learners or groups of learners. This could apply to either hard or soft skill progress, language difficulties, cultural factors, or school environmental disruptions.) (student input?)

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Essential Questions:

(Translate the goals and objectives into the questions students are to consider. Students may help in the construction of these questions. The essential question can be an umbrella question that is a broad question under which students can create their own sub-questions to investigate. In design thinking projects, the student voice will be much more prominent.)

Graphical chart/flow chart:

(Create a drawing of the unit from beginning to end; something like the drawings of the think models for inquiry experiences and stages of the design thinking model for that kind of experience.)

The Cotaught Learning Activities for Phase one of the unit:

(Describe here the various activities conducted jointly by both partners learning the learners through a series of events designed to move through the various objectives including formative assessments.) (Student input?) Usually, this is like a daily plan of lesson activities.

What is the product for phase one and how will it be assessed?

What kind of product would lend itself to the work to be done in phase 2, and whether individual or group and how would you assess it?

The Cotaught Learning Activities for phase 2 of the unit

Phase two of all the Think Models asks learners to draw upon their expertise in Phase one to compare/contrast, or combine ideas into a deeper understanding of the major umbrella question. It is often like phase one learners were responsible for one ingredient of a chocolate chip cookie and then in phase two, they combine all the ingredients together and bake the cookies to perfection. Thus, like phase one, there is a product; either for individuals or groups for phase 2 and you will need to have some sort of assessment.

The Cotaught Culminating Experience; Phase 2)

The culminating experience should be some type of exhibition that demonstrates collaborative intelligence; not individual expertise. Thus, serial oral reports are not acceptable; nor is something like a science fair where each group or individual stands by a booth of their project but really don't know what is being exhibited in the rest of the hall. Going into the culminating experience, each person has understanding of all the sub projects so they can intelligently discuss the umbrella questions. Thus they not only understand the European theater of WWII but also the Japanese theater. Or in community projects, they would understand the various problems encountered by everyone in both planning and executing projects. Writing letters, creating posters, creating psas or serial presentations are not acceptable because they are too superficial

The cotaught Big Think

The cotaught Big Think comes after the unit has been completed and the grades have been turned in. This activity happens between the adults and the learners and one of the eight strategies in the Big TThink book can be used here to reflect on what I learned, what we learned, what I can do, what we can do, and, how can we become better?