Begin with something like this: This unit was developed at San Diego State University in EDTEC 596, Interdisciplinary Teaching with Technology, Donn Ritchie, Instructor.
In this second paragraph of the introduction, describe briefly what the unit is about.
Describe the subjects and grade level that the unit is designed to cover. For example: "This unit is anchored in seventh grade language arts and involves social studies and math to a slightly lesser extent." If the unit can easily be extended to additional grades and subjects, mention that briefly here as well.
What will students learn as a result of this unit? Describe the outcomes succinctly. At the global level, use the language of the existing standards from the California, San Diego, and other frameworks. For example:
Social Studies Standards Addressed
Most units don't just teach a block of content; they also implicitly teach one or more types of thinking. In addition to describing learning outcomes within traditional subject areas, describe what kind of thinking and communications skills were encouraged by this unit. Inference-making? Critical thinking? Creative production? Creative problem-solving? Observation and categorization? Comparison? Teamwork? Compromise? You may wish to use the language of the District's Applied Learning Standards which were drawn from the the National New Standards Project.
What ties the unit together? Is it an event like a meeting of Pacific Rim heads of state, an issue like nuclear testing, a natural event like El Niño, or a concept like heroism or interdependence? Describe the theme in terms of three to six guiding questions and elaborate on the questions to the extent needed to make it clear to another teacher reading this.
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Guiding Question |
Knowledge |
Comprehension |
Application |
Analysis |
Synthesis |
Evaluation |
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Why do wars occur? |
Define war |
Distinguish several types of wars |
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Explain what the consequences of World War III would be |
Make a case for or against war |
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Where does peace come from? |
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Analyze the 1980's and define the points at which America was at peace |
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Another question |
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A comprehension objective |
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An evaluation level objective |
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Yet another question |
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Still another objective |
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And one more objective |
Describe briefly how the unit is organized. Does it involve more than one class? Is it all taught in one period per day, or is it part of several periods? How many days or weeks will it take? Is it interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, parallel, or what?
Describe what's needed to implement this lesson. Some of the possibilities:
If the unit makes extensive use of specific websites, it would be appropriate to list and link them here. Otherwise, do this in the more narrowly focused lesson or activity pages.
Describe how many teachers are needed to implement the unit. Is one enough? Is there a role for aides or parents in the room? Do you need to coordinate with a teacher at another school? With a partner in industry or a museum or other entity? Is a field trip designed in as part of the unit?
Describe what the learners will need to know prior to beginning this unit. Limit this description to the most critical skills that could not be picked up on the fly as the unit is given.
What skills does a teacher need in order to pull this unit off? Is it easy enough for a novice teacher? Does it require some experience with directing debates or role plays, for example?
This is the heart of the unit description. If the unit takes less than two weeks, show what happens each day. If it's a multi-week unit, a week by week breakdown may be enough. Link to documents that provide the details for specific lessons or subparts. These subdocuments should be addressed to the students directly, with hot links included to take them directly to the resources they'll need on-line. Assume that these subdocuments will be stored in the same folder as this unit description, and just link to them by their filename rather than by a full URL with http://etc.
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Describe in a short paragraph what happens on Day 1. You can expand to additional paragraphs within the table if needed. Be pithy but clear. | |
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Describe in a short paragraph what happens on Day 2. | |
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Describe in a short paragraph what happens on Day 3. |
For long units, there need not be a subdocument for every single day or session. Where there is no lesson document, be sure that the paragraph in the table above is sufficiently detailed to get the basic idea across to your audience.
If the unit involves parallel activities going on in several classes, the following format might be more appropriate:
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Language Arts |
Social Studies |
Math |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
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Describe what's going on in general during Day 1. | |||
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Describe what's going on in general during Day 2. | |||
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Describe what's going on in general during Day 3. |
How will you know that this unit was successful? Describe what student products or performances you'll be looking at and how they'll be evaluated. This, of course, should be tightly related to the standards and objectives you cited above.
If you can think of ways to vary the content and process of the unit, describe them here. If not, you can eliminate this section altogether.
Make some kind of summary statement here about the worthiness of this unit and the importance of what it will teach.