Unit Planning Reflection

Kelly Maisel

When starting the yearlong internship my only knowledge was on creating effective daily lesson plans. With practice, I was able to create an in-depth lesson detailing how to cover the state standard of the lesson while making the lesson of high cognitive demand. I would make sure that students were using reasoning skills to discover the mathematical content that was expected of them. Before I planned a lesson, I would focus on creating a real world situation for every lesson that I presented to my students. I would try to create a hands-on activity that would have them connect to the deeper understand of the mathematics. However, I was very caught up in the day-by-day aspect of teaching that I did not realize there was much more involved in planning and organizing. When first starting the internship, my mentor teacher guided me by giving me supplements that he had used previously, and shared assessments that I slightly modified. The first unit plan I created was on univariate data and distribution, and it was a new unit created by the common core. It was hard to find a starting point when creating the unit because I was new to planning an entire unit, especially from scratch. My mentor teacher did not have any supplements to guide my thinking, and I was left with a list of common core state stands I had to reach, and a list of topics that I needed to cover by the end of the unit. I started with what I knew how to do by expanding the topics I needed to cover into daily goals. The daily goals turned into daily lessons, with activities included to allow critical thinking and high levels of cognitive demand. Seeing the unit as a whole made it simple for me to create assessments for the students including homework assignments, topical quizzes for formative assessment, and a unit exam based on all the topics covered. I felt much more comfortable seeing the overall picture, rather than just pieces.

However, planning my first unit plan was also challenging. After completing the daily products of my unit, I needed to explain how I was going to connect each day to my overall goals for the unit. I was very comfortable talking about day-to-day activities, that my description of how daily lessons would reach the overall unit goals were similar to my daily goals. My lessons were quite lengthy, and I was not entirely sure what to include, and what to exclude when writing the details of the unit (Figure 1).
Day in Unit Seven Lesson Topic Lesson Learning Objective Description of how lesson contributes to unit-level objectives This lesson will give students definitions and understanding of measures of dispersion. They will be able to make connections with previous definitions of range, and compare to how it is used in a different context. The students will compare the deviation from the mean with the mean, and justify the reasoning for finding the deviation. Assessment activities

Measures of dispersion day 1

The learning objectives for this lesson are to introduce the range in the context of measures of dispersion, and to also introduce the deviation from the mean. The students will need to have an understanding of why we find these values, and what they represent.

Eight

Measures of dispersion day 2

The objective is the introduce variance and standard deviation as more measures of dispersion. Students will be able to explain what they mean in relation to the data and the graphical representations. We will work on how to find the variance and standard deviation given a set of data, or a graph.

This will meet unit level objectives by providing students with definitions of variance, and standard deviation. Students will explore and discuss what they think the reasoning behind variance and standard deviation is in relation to the data and the graphs.

We will spend the beginning of the hour correcting homework, and discussing any problems with collecting data. From there we will spend majority of the hour determining definitions of new material. After I will present two sets of similar data (sales being compared) and discuss why the deviation from the mean is important relative to finding the better offer. The class period will be spent with a lecture on variance and standard deviation. Students will work through various examples trying to calculate the variance and standard deviation. A homework set will be provided for extra practice, along with an upcoming quiz on measures of dispersion.

Figure 1 When completing my first unit plan on univariate data and distribution, it was also a challenge to think about the overarching of the unit. In the beginning of my internship I was never faced with knowing the overarching understanding. I was simply told to prepare a lesson

on a specific topic, but I was entirely sure what would result. When thinking about the overarching understanding of the unit, I interpreted it as incorporating the common core standard that I needed to address in combination with the topics that I had to cover. Looking back at my overarching understanding of the unit, it comes off as very weak, and does not properly reflect what the students learned in the unit (figure 2). Overarching Understanding
Interpret and analyze various sets of data. Graph data in appropriate graphical context. Using measures such as standard deviation, mean variance and z-scores. Analyze graphs and data with normal distribution.

Figure 2

I knew where I wanted my students to end up at the end of the unit, and I created an understanding where I wanted my students to end up when it came to content knowledge. When I described the essential overarching questions and the topical questions gives the real path I wanted my students to take in this unit (figure 3). However, I placed greater detail into my daily lesson plans, as I was used to, rather than going in depth about the reasoning behind teaching this unit. My students questioned the purpose of this lesson, and I had answers for them; however with further preparation into the overarching understanding of the unit, I may have a better explanation.

Essential Questions
Overarching
-Why is statistics an important part of math? -What ways and why is data represented? -What do different ways of analyzing data tell us? -How does analyzing data allow us to draw conclusions easier?

Topical
-Why do we use different measures of central tendency to describe data? -What does each data representation provide to the reader? -Why do we use variance, standard deviation, and z-scores to look at data, and how is it different than other measures of central tendency?

Figure 3

Starting the lead teaching portion of my yearlong internship allowed more freedom to create lesson plans based on my own discretion and personal teaching philosophy. I created a unit plan for logarithmic functions in which I taught first, I then planned a unit on rational functions, and a unit on sequences and series in which I see vast improvement from the unit I planned in the fall. One of my main points of improvement is being detailed on where I wanted my students to be at the end of the unit. In my most recent unit on sequences and series, I was able to describe what students need to know, instead of just listing bullet points of topics from the unit. This overarching understanding incorporates the common core stands that are addressed in the unit, as well as telling a story of how students will learn from start to finish (figure 4). Overarching Understanding Students will see linear patterns in arithmetic sequences and geometric sequences as the sequence increases by a constant difference or ratio. Students will understand how to create formulas based off of arithmetic and geometric sequences in order to find the nth term of the sequence. Students will then find the sum of an arithmetic and geometric series using summation notation, as well as build a series in summation notation based off of given information. Students will also be introduced to the idea of convergence and divergence as far as infinite geometric series. Figure 4 The unit on sequences and series was difficult to relate each topic in the unit to a real life event. Teachers are questioned often about the importance of the material, and even providing one real life example helps push the will to learn. If students feel they are learning something interesting that they would see outside the classroom they become much more engaged. When working with sequences and series I was lucky enough to find one example for each topic, but it was more challenging than previously planned units. With the lack of real world problems, I had to create activities with high cognitive demand in order to ensure I was challenging my students enough. I discovered that I would have my students use their critical thinking skills each day to

discover formulas needed for sequences and series. This level of cognitive demand would meet the overarching understanding that I wanted in the unit; reach the common core standards addressed in the unit, as well as use critical thinking skills. Looking at the flow of my daily plans for sequences and series, I can see improvement on differentiating daily plans to how to correspond with the overall unit goals. However, each daily lesson is lengthy, and may not help describe the goals of the unit to a non-mathematics teacher (figure 5). My daily lessons and goals to reach unit objectives blend together. This is due to continuing to focus on day-to-day development rather than long-term development. These challenges will decrease with practice and further research on unit planning.
Day 2 Arithmetic Sequences Students will need to notice patterns displayed by various arithmetic sequences. They will notice that there is a common difference between terms. From there they will derive a formula used to find the nth term of an arithmetic sequence. Once students know the formula for arithmetic sequences, they will face questions such as find the 10th term, or find the arithmetic means Students will recognize that arithmetic sequences increase or decrease by a constant term. They will notice that when creating a formula for arithmetic sequences that it has a linear feel, due to the constant increase/decrease. Students will be familiar with recursive and explicit formulas when regarding arithmetic sequences. They will also have real life models where they need to use arithmetic series to determine the answer. Students will see patterns of shapes, and will find out what the pattern is, and what the nth term of the object would be. Students will need to create and arithmetic sequence formula in order to determine the nth term of the pattern. Students will work with a partner to determine how to find out this information. A homework assignment will follow up on activities in class.

Figure 5 Having the freedom to create units gave me a much better understanding on constructing formative and summative assessments for my students. In my initial unit on univariate data and distribution, I created a survey for my students to fill out regarding their opinion on the unit. This was the first unit I created from scratch, so I was curious how students felt. I asked questions such as, What was your favorite topic, and what was your least favorite topic? Is there anything you would like to see more of as far as instruction? and, Were there any questions

you had that were left unanswered by the end of the unit? Students responded thoughtfully, and their responses are helping shape myself as a teacher, and how I teach them specifically in order for them to do well. I also created a pretest on the unit on univariate data and distribution in order to go into more depth of the subject based off of the students prior knowledge. Once my class went further into the school year it was challenging to create a pretest on the unit being that all of the material was new. I was able to create quizzes on different topics throughout the unit that assessed how much the students understood during a certain portion of the unit. It allows students to gage what material they understand, and what material they are struggling on in order to improve before the unit test. I am very impressed with my growth throughout this school year alone. I am now able to see units that I teach as a whole, which allows me to plan ahead and see the overall picture instead of just pieces. Practicing writing unit plans has allowed me to increase my understanding of overarching goals and understanding, and how to incorporate them into a daily lesson. I am able to create assessments that properly assess high levels of cognitive demand based on the goals of the unit stated when first planning the unit. With my successes, there are still parts of my unit planning that need further development. I am still struggling to distinguish the difference between daily lessons and how they connect to the unit goals, as well as how to make each topic of my unit revolving real life situations. I know that with additional practice, research and reading various lesson plans by other teachers that I will improve. Lesson plans are extremely important when it comes to tying all of the information together through the lessons, and moving forward when connecting units and curriculums together. During this experience I learned about how to prepare in advance, be ready for daily changes, and how unit plans help develop good teachers into great teachers with experience.