Unit Planning
InTASC Standard 7: The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.
In Effective Practices in Teaching and Learning, we went in depth on how to create a cohesive and effective unit plan. This enabled me to not only be organized and avoid planning just enough to get me through the day, but it also ensured that the students and I knew exactly where we were headed and what to expect over the course of the unit. This led to increased buy-in by students because it "creates discrete segments of learning that have a cohesive unity [that] will help engage your students in learning because each unit will have an overarching idea that is relevant and interesting to students" (Teach for America, 2011) It also leads to better classroom management, more-efficient timing of activities and transitions, as well as more time to focus on covering the most important material and the ability to differentiate for different learner abilities. As mentioned in our readings for Effective Practices (2011),"Unit planning provides you with a sense of direction and organization that again helps you and the class to achieve significant academic gains within a particular time period" (Teach for America, 2011).Below I highlight my Unit 4 plan, including the alignment to standards and the planning of assessments and activities to support and engage students.
My Unit 4 Plan: Where do you live?
Table of Contents
In this unit, the students learn about how to describe their city, their home, and location.
I will go into more detail below.
ACTFL World Language Standards
ACTFL World Language Standards
The ACTFL World Language Standards were created by the American Council on the Teaching Foreign Languages to assess the proficiency of learners of foreign languages. The standards are broken up into different levels of proficiency, which are novice, intermediate, advanced, superior, and distinguished. When one thinks of a new learner of a language — such as Spanish 1 — they are usually in the novice level. As students progress, they move up levels. Ideally, Spanish 2 and 3 students would be intermediate learners, while Spanish 4 and AP students would be closer to advanced. Within each level, there are subgroups, as well. For example, Novice is further broken down into Novice Low, Novice Mid, and Novice High subgroups. On top of this, students demonstrate proficiency in numerous aspects of a language, including conversation/speaking, listening, reading, and writing. A student could read at an intermediate level, but be unable to maintain a conversation or write a sentence. Here are two examples of what to expect between the lower proficiency levels.
ACTFL Can-Do Statements
The example above details what the students and I can expect from a speaker in each proficiency level. The chart shows Can-Do Statements from Novice Low (furthest left) to Intermediate Mid (furthest right). The students start by speaking "single words and phrases that [they] have practiced and memorized." As they move to Novice Mid, they begin to be able to use "a variety of words and phrases that [they] have practiced and memorized." Once they reach Novice High (my goal for Spanish 1), they can "usually handle short social interactions in everyday situations by asking and answering simple questions." In Spanish 2, the students begin to be able to communicate less with short and memorized responses. They "can usually say what [they] want to say about [themselves] and [their] everyday life." As I plan activities that practice speaking and communication, I keep these standards in mind.
ACTFL Can-Do Statements
The example above details what the students and I can expect from a writer in each proficiency level. The chart shows Can-Do Statements from Novice Low (furthest left) to Intermediate Mid (furthest right). The students start by copying "some familiar words, characters, or phrases." As they move to Novice Mid, they begin to "write lists and memorized phrases on familiar topics." Once they reach Novice High (my goal for Spanish 1), they can "write short messages and notes on familiar topics related to everyday life." In Spanish 2, the students begin to produce more and more sentences that connect to a wide variety of familiar topics. As I plan activities that practice writing, I keep these standards in mind.
Unit 4 Goals and Standards
Unit 4 Goals and Standards
As a Spanish teacher, I align my lessons to the ACTFL World Language Standards (in the previous section above). When I start to plan a unit, my first actions are to look at the goals that I want my students to achieve and the ACTFL Standards that they need to meet. In this unit, my Spanish 1 students are learning numerous types of verbs, places in the city and in the home, talking about how much things cost, and asking for specific information. According to the ACTFL Standards, my students should be at a novice-low to novice-mid level, meaning that they are still in the beginning stage of acquiring a language, but they have developed past simple, single sentence responses. My goal is to continue to improve upon that and have students reach a novice-high level by the end of the year. In order to do this, I need to make sure the material is relevant and engaging for the students. By talking about their city and their homes, this unit “provides an opportunity to stimulate student interest through overarching content that is relevant to students” (Teach for America, 2011, pp. 54). I plan relevant instruction that "supports every student [with] knowledge of learners and the community context" (InTASC, n.d.).
It is important that students are engaged in the material, especially with a foreign language, because it means that they will be more inclined to stay in the target language. This is crucial in learning another language. The Common European Framework (CEFR) estimates upward of 1,000 learning hours are needed to become proficient in a language depending on many factors, such as the similarity to the learner's language (Cambridge, 2018). Without student investment and practicality in their lives, it is unlikely that the students will retain what we learn in class. After all, almost every person I have met who casually studied Spanish in high school and did not pursue it afterwards has forgotten most of what they learned. This motivates me to make my class rigorous, relevant to my students, and to ensure that I am meeting the ACTFL Standards.
ACTFL Can-Do Statements on Communication, Listening, Writing, and Reading
In applying the ACTFL Standards (seen above) in the context of this unit, the students will improve their speaking, listening, reading, and writing through learning how to describe cities and homes. The students will begin to communicate about cities and the home through words and phrases. They will be able to write and read about cities and homes at a beginning level. They will also be able to recognize city and home vocabulary when it is spoken by Spanish speakers.
Unit 4 Summative Assessments
My Unit 4 Final Assessment
The next step that I take (after identifying my goals and the standards that I need to reach) includes looking at/creating an assessment that effectively measures my students' knowledge of these goals. In this particular unit, I used a Cengage-created assessment that aligns with our school's textbook. The assessment assesses the students' grammar, listening, reading and writing skills related to the unit goals and aligned standards. It starts with two listening sections related to different places in the city and home vocabulary. After that, it asks students to translate important home and city vocabulary words. It then assesses the students' knowledge of the unit's grammar, including the new verbs, locations and question words. At the end are reading and written sections that align to the unit goals and standards. Once I know the material that students will need to master for the unit assessment, I can begin to backwards plan and decide what I will teach each lesson of the unit. After the students have taken the assessment, I can then use their scores to check for common errors and adjust my instruction based on strengths and weaknesses. For example, if many students struggle on the written portion, I know to plan more writing activities in future lessons.
Unit 4 Final Assessment
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In this section, the students demonstrate their listening skills, marking cierto (true) or false (falso). The student received a 3 out of 5 correct. This tells me that they need more practice listening to material in Spanish. The statements are: 1. The park is far from Toni's home. 2. The post office is close to the park. 3. There is a library to the left of Toni's house. 4. The bookstore is next to the bank. 5. Toni lives close to his aunt's house.
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Assessment Class Averages
In this section, the students demonstrate their written knowledge of the vocabulary words, writing both rooms in a house and the objects that go inside them. 1. The garden; the flowers 2. The living room; the couch 3. the bedroom; the bed 4. the kitchen; the oven 5. the bathroom; the toilet. This student did well recalling the unit vocabulary, receiving a 10 out of 10 points.
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In this section, the students demonstrate their knowledge of the grammar. The translation is: 1. I don't remember where the game is. 2. They play football. 3. We can go to the park today. 4. They find their dog. 5 You eat lunch with your friends. 6. It isn't raining today. It is nice out.
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In this example, the students read and answer the questions true (cierto) or false (falso) based on the reading. The article reads: 150 square meter home not furnished for $12,000 per month. Rent a house in a quiet and elegant neighborhood, 100 meters from a park and 5 minutes from an important mall. The house has a pretty yard in the front and a patio with a pool in the back. In the main floor there is the kitchen (with washing machine, stove and oven), the dining room, the living room, a bathroom, and the garage. On the upper floor, there is another bathroom and 3 bedrooms. No pets allowed. Call at 555-334455.
The class averages for this assessment varied by period. My periods 1, 2 and 7 are Spanish level 1, so they are the classes that took the assessment. Both my period 2 and period 7 scored a 92%, while my period 1 scored a 75% on average. This has much to do with many students arriving tardy and regularly missing the content we cover in class. Because of this, I spend extra time and progress slower in my period 1 class. However, the other two classes demonstrated that they were ready to move onto the next unit.
As stated above, I use the results of summative assessments to assess what the students have learned and how I need to adjust future planning, so that "every student [is] meeting rigorous learning goals" (InTASC, n.d.). If certain sections are too easy, I need to create more-rigorous lessons addressing that specific topic. In this assessment, the vocabulary section is too easy, as many students answered it without errors. If certain areas produce poor scores, I need to look at the material and figure out a different way of teaching it. For example, many students found the listening section difficult, so I need to implement many more listening activities, on top of trying to maintain a classroom that remains in the target language. This exam also includes real life skills (seen in the reading section). The students read a listing for a house for rent, which is an important skill to have in English and Spanish.
Unit 4 Formative Assessments
Now that my unit assessment is created and my goals and standards are identified, I am able to create a road map, deciding how many lessons I need to reach these goals and what I will cover in each lesson. Just like a summative assessment ensures that I am aligned and keeping pace to the unit goals and standards, formative assessments help me align my individual lessons to unit goals and standards and keep my lessons at a productive pace. They also keep me responsive to my students' needs. By “consistently track[ing] student performance in a clear, organized tracking system, I am able “to make informed, data-driven adjustments to [my] instruction” (Teach for America, 2011, p. 71). Formative assessments allow me to catch my students' misunderstandings earlier in the unit and avoid disappointing summative assessment results.
Unit 4 Modified Vocabulary Quiz
Planning formative assessments before planning my lessons also allows me to plan for modifications for students with learning disabilities. I have enough time to plan not only my instructional strategies, but I can also plan how to adjust the assessments, so that all students are able to succeed. In this example, the student completed a multiple choice version of the vocabulary quiz that the rest of the class took. This made the quiz accessible to the student, and he still learned the new vocabulary.
Unit 4 Vocabulary Quizzes
Here are two samples from one of our vocabulary quizzes. The quiz on top received a 76%, and the quiz on the bottom did extremely well on the quiz with 100%. Most of the class received an 80% or higher, letting me know that we should apply these words more often in our activities, but we do not need to spend an entire lesson revisiting them.
Unit 4 Projects
Including a project in a unit plan is a way to deviate from traditional methods of learning. It also is fun and — if used effectively — a summative method to assessing students' abilities and planning instruction. I include at least one project or skit in each one of my units. This gives students an opportunity to apply what they have been learning in a creative manner. Along with many different activities that I employ in my class, it adds variety as a way to invest students, as well as measure their progress in the class. In this unit, students learn about the city and home, so I brainstormed ways of making fun and summative projects that assess the students' mastery of these topics. Like assessments, once I decided on the project, I could better plan my lessons because I understood what my students needed to know to complete the project. I chose the creation of a "dream house" and the planning of a "dream city" as the two project ideas. The students would need to create the house/city, and then describe it in writing and then present it to the class. This practices speaking, listening, reading and writing (aligned with the ACTFL Standards).
Speaking Rubric
Project Rubric
City Descriptions
1. The hospital is close to the church. In the hospital, I receive medicine. It is blue and brown.
2. The movie theatre is far from the hospital. In the movie theatre, I watch movies. It is black, red and yellow.
3. The supermarket is close to the mall. In the supermarket, I buy food. It is red.
4. The mall is close to the church. In the mall, I buy clothes. It is pink and green.
5. The church is to the right of the mall. In the church, I pray. It is black and brown.
6. The park is between the movie theatre and the mall. In the park, I run. It is very fun.
7. The bookstore is far from the school. In the bookstore, I buy many books. It is big.
8. The library is to the left of the park. In the library, I read books. It is brown and black.
Here is one of my students' city projects. Their first task was to act as city planners to create a map of a "dream city." From there they had to describe each of the places on the map based on location, appearance, and what people do there. The last part involved students presenting their project in Spanish to practice their speaking. This student used time efficiently during class and made minimal errors. As a result, she received a 38/40 (95%) on the project rubric. Afterwards, she presented her project in Spanish and did well with minimal grammatical errors. She received a 7/8 (87.5%). I grade speaking in a separate category as the project grade or quiz grade. This way it still holds weight compared to the project scores which seemingly have a much higher weight on the students' grade. With the separate categories, all three (quizzes, projects and speaking) are important for the students' grades.
This project also assists in my planning process, since I have to decide what skills my students need to master to be able to complete the project. It then gives me an idea of what students really know, as it can be difficult to measure what they know from a multiple-choice quiz. It is much harder to guess when presenting in front of a class. After a student presents, I can use their project as a measure of whether they understand the material or not. When they watch their peers present, the material is consolidated, as they will continue to learn while their peers present in Spanish.
By designing a dream city in the project, it has a cross-disciplinary element and provides community context. The students are able to reflect on their city and make comparisons with their ideal city. This invests students in the material, since they generally enjoy projects that are relevant to them. In this case, city and home vocabulary is present in their daily lives. They also experiment with city planning, giving them an opportunity to explore interest in another discipline.
Unit 4 Pacing
After planning and looking at my goals, assessments, and the ACTFL standards that I need to reach, I can plan my lessons. How long I spend on each topic depends on a number of factors. These include how difficult of a concept it is, (which I can judge on prior experience), formative assessment results, and how important the skill is in scaffolding for another, more-difficult topic. I want to make sure I am both keeping a pace where students are not left with endless amounts of free time, but I also do not want students to be continually stressed by the fast pace. I want to reach my goals in a timely manner, but I also want students to do well and understand the material by the end of the unit. As mentioned in my readings for Effective Practices in Teaching and Learning,"A unit plan keeps you on pace to reach your unit (and ultimately long-term) goals. Your unit plan, which should be referred to with almost daily frequency, is your point of reference
when you ask yourself, “Given where I want to be in two [or four or six] weeks, am I where I need to be now? Am I spending too much time on certain skills and concepts given the other skills and concepts that must be included in these X weeks, or X days?” Given the limited number of weeks, days, and lessons in a unit, each moment becomes more precious, forcing you to pace yourself appropriately in order to meet your end goals" (Teach for America, 2011).
My unit is broken down into 15 lessons. Because I have a block schedule, my lessons are 100 minutes every other day. This gives me and around 7 lessons per half of the unit. This means a heavy focus for 7-8 lessons will be the city, while the home will be the last 7-8 lessons. I give two vocabulary quizzes unit, with the first one towards the beginning of class and the second one around the halfway point of the unit.The students complete two different projects and take an exit ticket every day at the end of class. At the end of the unit, they complete the unit assessment, summarizing everything they learned in the unit. This includes city and home vocabulary, different verbs learned, telling directions, etc.
References:
Cambridge University Press. (2018, January). HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE? Retrieved from https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/How-long-does-it-take-to-learn-a-foreign-language.pdf
Teach For America. (2011). Instructional planning & delivery. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9aKdxaTnscyZmZ4aVh5Wnd4aG8/view?pli=1