ABSTRACT

Planning), 9 (Refl ective Practice) Topics: history, geography, civics, economics, ethical-political valuation, critical thinking, pur-

poses/goals, unit development, teacher refl ection, creating teaching materials, instructional strategies, integrated curriculum, concept development

As teachers begin to learn unit planning, they need to understand the processes of scaff olding multiple lessons toward the teaching of major unit concepts and they need to judge what types of strategies and resources are best suited to each stage and aim of a unit. Teachers require a deep sense of purpose and an understanding of the philosophical and conceptual frames that drive their teaching. Th is judgment serves as the foundation from which teachers then decide on the major concepts and units they will teach, the lessons that will help scaff old that understanding, and the assessments that will demonstrate that learning was achieved (see Table 72.1). Yet, scaffolding lessons into units is fairly complex and social education units can be especially challenging because they entail multiple distinctive pedagogical aims that suggest distinctive pedagogies and the use of distinctive texts and resources. Th ough teachers should be fl exible and allow units to develop and change in response to students’ interests, good planning is paramount and so I ask student planning units for detailed written responses to what I call the big 10 goals questions and the big six resource questions. I ask for one to three paragraphs on each question or subsection and students can use their cut and paste function when describing the same idea in more than one place.