Creating the First Unit Plans and Using Peer Reviewing as a Tool

            Over the past 3 weeks in my Methods of Teaching class with Dr. Daniel Foster, we have been working on refining one unit plan of our choosing. We have gone through 2 rounds of peer review, both with revisions to our unit plan drafts following receiving feedback, finally being ready to turn in for professional feedback. Like any peer review I have done for courses throughout my time in college, it is helpful to get another person's eyes on my work to give a second perspective and input. I have found, however, that it is especially helpful when the feedback is coming from peers who are also creating such a wide variety and high number of unit plans along side of me.

Here are my 3 key take aways from this peer review experience:

    1. I can learn as much from peer reviewing other students' unit plans as I do from them reviewing mine. I loved giving feedback to my peers because I was able to see how they are approaching units similar to ones I will be teaching. This process makes teaching feel collaborative, being able to work together to brainstorm, share ideas, and develop those ideas into complete plans. 

    2. Everyone organizes their lesson/unit plans differently and I must find a method that works best for me. Feedback is to be reviewed and considered, but not necessarily requiring a change to the original. It is there to make me reconsider and think through my original decision for a second time, helping me decide whether I need to change it or want to keep it the same.

    3. Creating my unit assessment first, helps keep focus throughout the unit planning process. I originally attempted to plan my lesson objectives and then create an exam based on an amalgamation of all, but quickly found this to be very difficult to include everything I wanted the students to take away from each lesson. Instead, I created my exam with the key details I want students to remember after the unit is complete. I then went back through the lesson objectives, made sure there were existing objectives that explicitly hit each point that would be on the exam, and then made sure that all other objectives in the unit were connected to those explicit objectives. 

            I am excited to see how my process of creating lesson and unit plans changes throughout this semester as I create my 19 unit plans and 65 lesson plans to enter student teaching with. I am also excited to see how my approach to the planning process develops as I go through my semester in the classroom. It will be interesting to compare lessons and units created now, in September, to ones created in April, at the end of my time student teaching.