Brynn McLaughlin

EDU 1027 Final Reflection

This project has helped me gain a better understanding of unit plans in general. It

especially helped me with creating standard-aligned unit plans. Before this project, I had only

done one other unit plan. This unit plan did not have to meet any standards, we just needed to

write lessons based on a specific topic that was assigned to us. When we were first assigned this

project, I was not sure what topic I was going to make my unit plan on. After looking at some

standards I came to the decision of making a figurative language unit plan. Writing an outline of

the unit plan helped me figure out exactly what I wanted to do during the lesson. One thing that I

was unsure about while creating this unit plan was if I should make the lessons similar or not. As

I thought of this, I was able to think of what I wanted the students to have at the end of the unit to

help them remember everything that was taught. Once I had the end of my lesson figured out, it

was easier to create the learning objectives. This project has aided in my understanding of

figuring out the goals of the lesson or unit before creating the actual lessons. It is important to

know what you are working towards before you figure out activities that are going to be done. If

activities are thought of first, then they may not meet the goals of the lesson or unit. Another

thing that I was not sure about when going into this project was how to make sure the standards

made sense together for the unit. I knew that standards were grouped together based on content,

but I was not sure how to pick the right standards. One of the standards I used, I did not meet the

whole standard requirement in one lesson. As I planned more lessons in my head than I actually

wrote, I separated the standard into two different lessons. One of those lessons did not make my

unit plan, however if I was actually teaching that is how I would have done it. Being able to
write fully detailed lesson plans allowed me to separate the different standards that had to be

met. The goal is to teach these lessons to fit the standards, even if that means spreading the

standards out. This project has helped expand my mind on how to actually create a unit plan. I

was not really sure what unit plans should look like before this project. However, if I was asked

to write a unit plan now, I would feel more confident writing one.

There were many things that I liked about this project. The first thing that I liked was

how spread out everything was. It helped me pace myself, instead of waiting till the last minute

to do everything. I also liked that instead of just jumping into writing lessons for the unit plan,

we had to create an outline and give our reasoning for the topic. This helped me think about why

I was picking my topic and how I would lay out my lessons. Whenever I wrote lesson plans for

other classes, I just wrote for the topic they assigned and did not really put too much thought into

the topic. I put thought into the lessons, however I feel like I thought about these lessons more. I

thought about how they would work off of each other. In regular lesson plans, you do not put

much thought into future lessons. However, in teaching you always have to think about how

lessons play off each other. Another thing that I liked about this project is that we had to create a

unit plan outline. This helped think ahead and lay out everything I wanted to do in the unit plan. I

was able to create the connections between the lessons to help build on the next lesson before

even writing them. Since this was a project that was being worked on all semester, the outline

was used as my guide for my lessons. I may have changed some ideas around as the semester

went but I had my base the entire semester. Another thing I liked about this project was how we

had to hand it in. I thought it was interesting to hand this project in in an online portfolio. There

were not many things that I did not like about this project. One thing that I was not the biggest

fan of was having to create a presentation and a portfolio for it. I would have liked if we had to
add the answers to the presentation questions into our portfolio. This would have gotten me

thinking more as I worked on the final parts of my portfolio. Other than that, I felt like this

project was very beneficial. It helped clear up some confusion I had about writing unit plans.

There are a few things that I thought about or did during this project that I might change

if I had to redo it. One thing that I would do differently is going more detailed in my unit plan

outline. The outline was great to look at and have an idea of what I was going to do during my

lessons. However, I feel like I could have gone more in depth with the outline and the lesson

plans would have been that much easier to complete. Another thing I would change is writing the

planning commentary when I wrote the main part of my lesson. Going back in and writing the

planning commentary was more difficult than I thought it would be. It would have been better

for me to complete the whole lesson plan at once so that the worry of planning commentary

would not come at the end of the semester. Another thing I would have done differently with this

project is creating my portfolio at the beginning of the project and then adding the lessons,

outline and everything else in as I completed them. This would have made my stress level at the

end of the semester lighter. Some things that I would keep in mind for when I am creating unit

plans in the future is planning ahead. The unit outline is a great way to help stay ahead of the

lessons and build on prior and future lessons. Creating outlines will help lower the workload

when the environment and stress level are more intense. When I start student teaching, I will use

what I learned during this mini unit plan project. One thing I will always remember is to think

about the learning objectives and goals of the unit first. I will remember to work based on the

objectives to help plan assessment. Learning objectives and assessment should go hand in hand

with each other. It is important to remember that in a stressful time such as student teaching. This

information will help make lessons better and flow better.