Thematic Unit Description Requirements

Your first big project in the course is to collaborate with a team of your peers to plan an interdisciplinary thematic unit of instruction. The unit will incorporate content areas that are representative of your team members' majors and minors. Using knowledge and skills developed in the course, you will demonstrate how technology can be used to support the instructional outcomes defined in the unit. You will use the same thematic unit throughout the course as an anchor for class projects. Therefore, it's important to select a theme that you are genuinely interested in teaching and subject areas about which you possess basic content knowledge.

Assignment

Design an interdisciplinary* unit of instruction under a common theme. Choose a theme that is broad enough to involve several different instructional outcomes, yet not so broad as to encompass an entire subject area (e.g., geometry). Assume that you are teaching in 1-to-1 environment (one personalized computer per person). The duration of your unit should be approximately two weeks long**. Of course, the theme should be age-appropriate and appeal to your learners' interests and experiences.

*Interdisciplinary, or cross-curricular unit involves a conscious effort to apply knowledge, principles, and/or values to more than one academic discipline simultaneously. The disciplines may be related through a central theme, issue, problem, process, topic, or experience (Jacobs, 1989).

**You are not expected to write specific lesson plans, just an overview of the unit context, learners, competencies, and instructional outcomes. Use the template provided which includes the required headings and document structure.

Standards, Benchmarks or Essential concepts

Search Iowa Core or other standards & benchmarks linked below to identify curricular topics, or essential concepts related to your chosen theme that represent multiple subject areas. In your unit description document you will be asked to identify at least two essential concepts for each subject area and provide a link to their source.

• Iowa Core or Common Core (Literacy, Math, Science, Social Studies, and 21st Century Skills such as health, civic, financial, and technology literacy)
• The Next Generation Science Standards
• PE majors may look at SHAPE America and consult the NASPE national standards' Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education
• Foreign language majors may explore Standards for Foreign Language Learning
• ELL teachers can look through TESOL resources
• Dance, Media Arts, Music, Theater and Visual Arts can find their standards here. Arts Education can be related to Universal Constructs in Iowa Core under Creativity section.
• Special Ed, check Iowa Core and Essential Elements for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities

You may download Iowa Core Standards app for your apple or android based smart device

Templates

You are required to use the templates provided to generate these documents. Each includes the required structure and headings. Do not delete the headings or the numbered prompts within each section from the unit description template. Follow each prompt using complete sentences throughout.

Diversity

In section II of the paper, you are asked to describe the cultural diversity of learners. No credit will be given to the response "there is none". Even in Pumpkin Center, Iowa, there exists differences among learners. Consider this broad definition provided by the UNI Diversity Council:

Diversity describes the rich differences that people bring to the community. It can refer broadly to culture, identity and ideology, or more specifically to age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, ability, gender identity, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, marital status, national origin or veteran status. Diversity is a dynamic concept, shaped by history, and changing as our understanding of the world and its people evolves.

When describing the diversity of your students, you are expected to be realistic yet acknowledge the types of diversity present in any community. Among other resources, recall one of your first RWLDs, the Annual Condition of Education report (PK-12) from the Iowa Department of Education, and the discussion of diversity during the lecture on Systematic Instructional Design.

Learning Outcomes

The selection of instructional methods, media and materials should be based on predefined goals and objectives. That is why you create an overall unit plan in this course, BEFORE exploring how to integrate technology into the learning activities that will support it.

Planning a unit of instruction involves articulating student learning outcomes. The teacher should be able to describe exactly what students will know or be able to do as a result of their learning experience. Clear instructional goals or learning outcomes provide the basis needed for developing learning activities and assessments. Think about this—if you don't know what the learning outcome should be, then how will you know what to assess or how to assess it?

All of Iowa schools base their learning outcomes on the Iowa Core Curriculum. This is a set of standards that identify what learning outcomes teachers should have in mind when they are teaching. Development of the Iowa Core Curriculum began in 2005 and was passed by the Iowa Senate in 2007. Since then, The Iowa State Board of Education has adopted the national Common Core State Standards in English/Language Arts and Mathematics to replace the original Iowa Core Essential Concepts/Skill Sets and Details. (Iowa Core Background)

Iowa Common Core

The overall structure of the Common Core is to provide Learning Goals AKA Essential Concepts and then identify observable behaviors that must be mastered to achieve the identified Learning Goals. These behaviors are called Learning Objectives AKA Skills.

Example: Iowa Core Writing Standard - Grade 7 (Writing Standards 6-12)

GOAL/Essential Concept: Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence (W.7.1)

This Goal is clear about what the student should be able to do, but it isn’t specific about the skills a student should have to be able to do this. That is why it is necessary to write the Objectives that specify the necessary behavior.

OBJECTIVES/Skills: (Each of these statements identify a measurable behavior.)

1. Upon completion of this unit students will be able to introduce claim(s), acknowledge alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
2. Upon completion of this unit students will be able to support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant evidence,
3. Upon completion of this unit students will be able to maintain a formal style while introducing the claims. (W.7.1)

THEMATIC UNIT CONNECTION: (Describe how the Unit Theme will be connected with each Skill)

1. The students will research and gather credible materials to support (or oppose) saving rainforests.
2. The students will write logical arguments about how and why (or why not) we should save rainforests.
3. The students’ speech will be written in a formal style to prepare for a town house meeting.

Notice that both Goals/Essential Concepts and Objectives/skills describe the outcome of learning, not the learning activities or lessons! Resist the temptation to describe how students will learn, and focus instead on describing what they will learn. What they will learn may fall into one of three domains of learning. Use observable and measurable verbs to describe the performance. See the Helpful Hundred for a list of example terms and also action verbs aligned with Bloom's Taxonomy.

After consulting the Iowa Core or other benchmarks to identify age-appropriate curricular outcomes related to your chosen theme, establish at least three overall goals for learners. What do you want students to accomplish in terms of learned knowledge or skills by the end of the unit? Write each goal as a single sentence and cite the related discipline and grade level from the Iowa Core or other standards & benchmarks (e.g., —Iowa Core, Health, Grade 2). You must include at least two overall goal statements in your thematic unit description, and each must cite the related discipline and grade level from Iowa Core or your subject specific standards & benchmarks.

Concept mapping

The concept map can be a great tool to support visual thinking and helps visually represent complex ideas.  It can also serve as brainstorming tool and graphic organizer.

As mentioned above your unit needs to be interdisciplinary. In part I.5 of your unit description (refer to the template) you will be challenged to visualize the connections that your students will make between your different subject areas based on your unit theme.

While concept mapping could be done on a piece of paper or dry erase board we would like to challenge you to learn something new. There are many concept-mapping tools to make your concept map. Popplet, Coggle, Mindomo, Bubbl.us or Lucid Chart are one of the most popular concept-mapping tools used in education but you do not have to limit yourself to the tools listed.

Enrichment resource: Examine Different Types of Graphic Organizers for reading comprehension. Which of the organizers could you incorporate in your future classroom?

Point Structure (100 points)

Special Notes:

• You must use the template provided for this assignment. Retain the section headings and numbers within. Follow each prompt with your own information using complete sentences throughout.
• Follow the instructions provided in the submission box precisely to avoid losing points on your assignment.
• Don't forget to cite and link the related connection to Core Standards
• If you have any questions about terminology or expectations for the paper, contact your instructor well in advance of the due date.