Understanding by Design PD resources

Your Task

With other teachers in your content area, create a unit plan using the Understanding by Design Template.

1. For examples of Understanding by Design subject specific unit plans, look here:

Teachers, here you can find a collection of sample Understanding by Design unit plans categorized by content area.

English

Health

Teachers will be given a hard copy of nutrition unit from Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design by Tomlinson and McTighe.

Math

Geometry this link includes a full length description of the backwards design process along with a unit on 10th grade geometry (volume and surface area) that starts on page 4 (scroll down).

Media

Science

Earth Science

Plate Tectonics unit 1

Plate Tectonics unit 2 To access this unit plan, click it and then open it in your downloads folder on the left side of your dock (bottom of screen).

Water Source, Quality, and Management unit

Living Environment

DNA fingerprinting whodunnit mystery unit

Global footprint unit

Social Studies

Unit plans that change every time you reload

I will also give you a hard copy of a Vietnam War unit plan and a Civil War unit plan

Spanish

Heroes and mediums of communication unit

Spanish Greetings and introductions unit

Here's an Understanding by Design unit rubric that administrators and teachers can use to give feedback for units to colleagues.

2. You can access the unit template here or by checking your email.

3. Save the unit plan as a copy and rename it: Subject Topic Unit ex. Biology DNA Fingerprinting Unit

4. Next post your unit plan on the HS308Staff wiki. Sign up for Wikispaces. Do NOT create a wiki. Join the HS308Staff wiki. I will approve your membership.

To post the unit plan on the site, find your subject on the left hand navigation menu. Click your subject. Click edit on the top right corner of the page. Copy and paste your unit. Click save.

If you are having trouble with wikispaces, you can share the unit plan with HS308Staff@Googlegroups.com as a Google Doc and I’ll post the unit plan for you later.

Understanding by Design PD in progress

I'm doing another PD on Brooklyn Queens Day about Understanding by Design. In this PD, I will be talking to teachers about how to design units by first defining the learning goals for students (based on NYS Standards/Regents), next the assessments (formative and summative), and finally the learning activities. I have a feeling from observing many of the teachers at this school that many of them are already planning using this template but it's a good idea to reinforce best practices and show them some sample UbD units to let them see what teachers are doing in other schools.

Unfortunately, the official UbD unit exchange website is pay-per-user and at $69 per user for 10-20 users, it could be a bit pricey. There is however, a free alternative to that, a UbD wiki in which the users post their lesson plans (by subject area) free of charge. =)

Through my search for UbD units, I also found some web sites of tech integration consultants, some who work in public schools, and some who work in international schools in foreign countries. I saw many ideas that I wish I had seen at the beginning of the year (using Google Sites, using the UbD template to train teachers to integrate technology, using the UbD template to help teachers plan.) I wish I could have done a better job as a "Teacher & Student Learning Center" coordinator...If I could do the year over again, I would have set up a website immediately where teachers could get resources, I would blog every time I found something interesting, and I would have reached out to more teachers. Well, there's always these last few weeks... I hope the next person is truly a great resource.

Blogger and Trackstar PD debriefing

So we had the Blogger and Trackstar PD on Thursday and I think it went well. I presented to a group of 15 teachers and divided them into jigsaw groups to research applications of Blogger in the classroom. I think the blogging platform was well-received and I heard some people enthusiastically share ideas about Blogger and some said they would use it for a final portfolio. As a bonus, Mr. Previte even showed us his Ning.

I started the Trackstar PD but a whole bunch of teachers had to leave before we got to sign up or use it. =( I guess it's difficult to gather the whole staff on a weekday afternoon right before the Regents start. I hope our attendance at the next PD on higher order questions and (umm...I have to look at the PD google doc again...) goes better.

So that was it for the Blogger PD; I only wish my boss had seen it ; )

Blogger PD Big Day!

Today is the big day of the Blogger workshop for teachers! I'm really excited to introduce a great tool for extending class discussion beyond the walls of the classroom. Finally, we've got a way to see what all the students were thinking at the end of the lesson. I'm just putting the finishing touches on this PD by assigning the teachers to jigsaw groups and making copies.

Then I have to check my Trackstar PD to see if I need to make any changes on that. That one is going to be intense...wooh.

In a few minutes, I have to translate the MS 202 biology exam into Chinese...what? Let's hope these students are good at biology and I won't have to explain what mass and density are in Chinese. I made and printed out a list of biology term in Chinese and English just in case.

Blogger PD Exit Slip

Consider the blogger ideas you viewed in your expert groups and the resources you heard about in your family groups. How would you use Blogger in your class?

Blogger PD

So I'm working on another Professional Development workshop to present to the teachers on Thursday. This time, our workshop is going to be on differentiating lessons with Trackstar and online discussions/writing portfolios using Blogger.

I'm excited and almost done with the Trackstar presentation but I'm still working on the Blogger presentation. I know how to use Blogger because I usually use Wordpress but I haven't really compiled the list of ways that teachers can use Blogger yet. I guess I could start with the link that Mr. Birgeles gave me to the Blogger site he used last year with 901. Hmm...