The overall purpose of the unit assignment in Phase III is to guide interns in the development of their competency in the complexities of long term planning, in using assessments to guide instruction, and to evaluate the impact of their instruction upon the students in their class. Also, it provides a sample of the interns’ work as a teacher.
Specifically, through the unit assignment, interns will demonstrate the following:
You will be planning for either two five-day units or one ten-day unit. The entire process of planning, implementing, and assessing the unit will be completed in stages. The first stage involves gathering background information and planning an overview. Stage two is the actual planning and implementing of the unit lessons. Stage three is the analysis of the post assessment, the reflection on the implementation of the unit, and the impact on students. Before beginning the unit planning, review the rubric that will be used by the mentor teacher and the university supervisor to assess the assignment. (See the last pages of this assignment.)
13. Put these materials in your Unit Binder.
14. The University Supervisor will ask questions concerning the background information collected, the topic goals, timeline and the pre-assessment. (See the questions on the Unit Pre-Instruction Interview Form.) The university supervisor will offer suggestions and confer with the mentor teacher. At the conclusion of the conference, the university supervisor will sign the form.
15. Put the signed form in your Unit Binder.
During the second stage of the unit, you will actually create the lesson plans to teach the unit. Each lesson will be completed on TaskStream using the long lesson plan form. At the end of each lesson, you will reflect on the lesson and changes to the lesson if you were to teach it again. Put all lessons in your Unit Binder. Note that even though you plan a five day unit or a ten day unit, the actual teaching of the plans may take additional days. Your university supervisor will observe one of your unit lessons unless there is some type of scheduling conflict. During the follow-up conference they may ask you about other lessons in your unit. So, as you are developing your plans, keep asking yourself the following questions?
During this stage of the unit process, you will be doing reflections and analysis of the students’ learning. They are as follows:
Grading:
The completed Unit Binder is to be submitted first to the mentor and then the university supervisor for assessment. The Unit binder represents a sample of your teaching – a Teacher Work Sample.
The following items are to be in the Unit Binder:
The mentor teacher and the university supervisor work as a team to determine the score on the rubric after both have had time to review the materials in the Unit Binder. The rubric included will be used to assess the Unit Assignment. The score is shared with the intern. If the score is in the unacceptable range, the mentor and university supervisor will conference with the intern explaining what parts need to be resubmitted. The intern needs to score in the acceptable range or pass ELED 495 Teaching Internship II: PreK-8 Programs.
If two five day units are developed during the semester, only the second unit will be graded. The unit assignment needs to be graded prior to Portfolio Night as the intern may wish to include lessons, student products, assessments, and evidence of student impact from the unit in their portfolio.
The scored rubric will be collected by the university supervisor during the final conference. The unit rubric is one of the materials collected by the University Supervisor for submission to the Placement officer at the end of the semester.
On the following pages you will find the Unit Pre-Instruction Interview Form and the Unit Assignment Rubric.