The unit plan project is designed to prepare you for your student teaching experience in the spring as well as for your future classroom experience. In a short time, you will be asked to develop plans for several classes each day, as well as for the week and for the month. Often a part of this planning will involve you taking the lead on developing a plan for an entire unit (much of the planning will be done with your cooperating teacher assisting you in lesson planning and development). The unit may be defined by a chapter of a text, by the district's content outline, or by a particular topic that is of interest to you and your cooperating teacher.
For this project, you are receiving a chapter from a middle school math text used in many districts. It is the chapter from the teacher's edition and includes the student text pages as well as suggestions for the lessons and solutions to the problems. Be sure to take advantage of the suggestions as you plan your unit. The specifications for your unit plan are given below.
Your unit plan is due on Monday, November 28 by 4 pm.
A. [5] Heading: Include the title of the unit, a summary paragraph, and a statement of what the unit objectives are.
B. [25] Day to Day plan of entire unit including for each day:
a. A brief summary of the topic
b. Lesson objectives from the NYS Mathematics Core Curriculum for Pre-K to Grade 12
c. Anticipatory set
d. Developmental activity overview
e. Assignments (if appropriate)
NOTE: The 3 days that are fully developed lessons do not need an overview.
C. [45] Three Student-Centered Lesson Plans written in the format presented in class. The three lessons must address the following requirements:
a. One cooperative learning lesson centered on an investigation.
b. One lesson that incorporates manipulatives. The entire lesson does not have to involve the use of manipulatives, however they should be the main focus of the lesson.
c. One lesson that incorporates technology. Again, the entire lesson does not have to involve the use of technology, however it should be central to the concept being developed in the lesson.
d. Each lesson plan should include how the previous day's homework will be reviewed if there was any assigned. It is assumed that homework is a regular part of the expectations in this class.
NOTE:
The 3 plans should be included with your work from part B. That is, I
will read
the daily plan for day #3 and following that is either day #4's daily
plan or a
fully
developed lesson for day #4.
D. [15] Unit Assessment: Prepare 3 assessments that you will use with your students during the unit. One should be the unit assessment. This assessment should require one day only. Note: A rule of thumb is to allow students three to four times as long as it takes you to answer the questions. The other two assessments should be brief alternative assessments (only a portion of a class period is devoted) that offer you insight into the studentsÕ understanding of certain concepts. Include scoring schemes for each assessment.
E. [10] Your Response to the following questions (as you would to an 8th grade class) that may come up in this unit:
a.
Why can't we
divide by zero? Offer two different approaches
to assist students in understanding why this is not possible. Your
response
should provide some insight into what we mean by undefined.
b.
If I divide the
fraction 8/15 by 2/5 and simply divide
across the top and divide across the bottom as I do when I multiply, it
gives
me the correct answer of 4/3. How do you respond to a student who wants
to
solve the problem this way?
c.
A student asks
you "Why it is that we end up multiplying
when we are dividing fractions?" Explain why the "multiplying by the
reciprocal" rule actually can be made to make sense in light of this
seeming
conflict.
d. Why does a negative times a negative equal a positive? Provide two explanations. (Hint: You might see what you can find on Postman Stories or Dieting/Weight situations in this context along with the more typical distributive property explanation.)