Final Reflection

     Being in this class has introduced me to a whole new way to create a lesson plan and how to integrate subjects in a unit plan. On the first day of class I had not thought about integrating subjects together.  I always thought that you teach just English at English time and math at math time and art at art time.  But after taking this class it has allowed me to see how important it is to integrate other subjects into a lesson plan so you are not teaching in isolation.  In the classroom there may not be enough time in the day for social studies so it is a good idea to try to link social studies objectives into other subjects. My opinion use to be when you hear the word social studies you think of history, dates, presidents, things that happened in the past. Now I know that when it comes to teaching social studies there is so much more involved.  Now I know that social studies involves civics, geography and history.  Before starting this class I had not heard of Understanding by design (UBD).  Wiggins and McTighe (2010) describes the UBD template as a curriculum-planning framework, which is a backward design.  Meaning that you plan backwards by identifying your results first, and then determine acceptable evidence, and lastly you plan the learning experiences.  Usually teachers would plan the learning experiences first but in UBD that part comes last.  As the class carried on and I started reading more and learning more about this design I begin to understand how this design works and then planning a unit based on this design was very challenging but rewarding.  Having to pick standards and then design the essential questions come up with evidence that shows they met the criteria and then planning lesson plans was a long process but the end result was worth it.  After experiencing this design it made me see how easy it could be to integrate other subjects into a plan.  It will take some work but the students will benefit from the integration of all these subjects.  Creating a hook lesson is also something that was a struggle because you have to figure out a good way to hook students into your unit.  Creating a hook lesson was part of creating the unit plan and after thinking about different ideas that would hook the students I decided on using props.  What stood out to me in this class was the information and resources I learned are at the history and art museum   I never knew that  those places could be resources when it comes to social studies and the arts.  What surprised me was that the history museum had history kits that they let the teachers at the schools use in the classrooms.   I liked reading about how the UBD is created and the different component of it.  I really thought it was interesting that the lessons and activities are the last things that are planned.  At the end of this class I have gained knowledge on how to integrate a unit, how to write a hook lesson and how important social studies is in the classroom.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2010). Understanding by design: Guide to creating high quality units.

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Division