Every few years, we as teachers need to change our approach and try new strategies. The strategies we learned in college and have used countless time need a refreshing. This includes our lesson plans. Have you changed your lesson plan format lately? Maybe your district has mandated a new format. Have you truly examined your lesson plans and tried to create a document that focuses on a unit and how you want the students to learn? In the book The New Art and Science of Teaching by Robert J. Marzano, he gives over three hundred strategies to use within your classes. He also recommends focusing on unit planning as opposed to lesson planning. Marzano’s recommendation is a strategy to help teachers transition from a lackluster lesson plan to a unit plan with steps to achieve students’ learning growth.
Unit Planning: The New Flexible Plan
A unit plan can be created with an end goal in mind-what do you want the students to learn by the end of the unit? I have used a calendar and wrote a timeframe for the skills I wanted my students to use. For example, I worked on a pacing guide committee for my district, and the team started with the end goal. By the end of the school year, we wanted students from 7-12 to be able to write an argumentative essay. We scaffolded the lessons from September to May in order of importance. We understood that students are going to be tested on citing textual evidence frequently, and we included citing textual evidence a part of every lesson.
The strategy I learned while working on the pacing guide committee is the same lesson I can incorporate into my unit plan. What do I want my students to learn? What must my students demonstrate to show their knowledge and understanding of the learning target? What strategies will be used to reach the learning target? I am predicting obstacles along the way; which strategies will help reteach a concept? These types of questions take time to reflect, but they will provide better outcomes for the lesson.
Break the unit plan into flexible weeks. Remember the unit plan is the overall desired student learning goal. In Marzano’s book, he lists six design areas for daily activities. They include:
- “Design area 1: Activities that provide and communicate clear learning goals
- Design area 2: Assessment activities
- Design area 3: Direct instruction lessons
- Design area 4: Practicing and deepening lessons
- Design area 5: Knowledge application lessons
- Design area 6: Strategies used in all lessons” (108).
The first step would be to introduce the learning goal. You may have it written on the board and state it throughout the lesson. Have students self-assess their current level of understanding of the topic. Next, you provide direct instruction lessons. This would include a think-aloud or modeling of writing a short essay. Engage students in guided practice and deepening lessons. End the lesson with a “knowledge application task for which students generate and support claims” (109).
In addition to the six design areas, there are six design questions to help during planning. Marzano considers these questions “the heart of unit design” (109). Read the questions and consider them while making a unit plan.
| Design Question 1 | How will I communicate clear learning goals that help students understand the progression of knowledge they are expected to master and where they are along that progression? |
| Design Question 2 | How will I design and administer assessments that help students understand how their test scores and grades are related to their status on the progression of knowledge they are expected to master? |
| Design Question 3 | When content is new, how will I design and deliver direct instruction lessons that help students understand which parts are important and how the parts fit together? |
| Design Question 4 | After presenting content, how will I design and deliver lessons that help students deepen their understanding and develop fluency in skills and processes? |
| Design Question 5 | After presenting content, how will I design and deliver lessons that help students to generate and defend claims through knowledge application? |
| Design Question 6 | Throughout all types of lessons, what strategies will I use to help students continually integrate new knowledge with old knowledge and revise their understanding accordingly? |
I have used unit planning for three years and it provides direction for me. At my school, we have Teachers Building Teams (TBTs) and we have weekly meetings. At the beginning of the year, we must create a unit plan of all the lessons we plan to teach using an academic calendar. During the meeting, we verbally answer the design questions. We focus on design question one and strategies such as OPTIC, Read, Write, Discuss, and Revise, and text organization. Using a unit plan has helped me have a focus for the school year and I can place my attention on the skills I want students to learn by the end of the unit.
Now that you have been introduced to the six areas of design and design questions, how are you going to improve your unit plan? Using Marzano’s recommendations will assist you in reflecting on how to structure your plan and focus on the final learning goal. Try unit planning and write a comment about how it worked for you and your classroom.
Work Cited
Marzano, Robert J. The New Art and Science of Teaching. Solution Tree Press, 2017.
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