Author: Brenda Stephenson The University of Tennessee

1. Author: Brenda StephensonThe University of Tennessee • Date submitted to deafed.net – March 6, 2006 • To contact the author for permission to use this PowerPoint, please e-mail: bsimmon1@utk.edu • To use this PowerPoint presentation in its entirety, please give credit to the author.

2. Unit Planning and Lesson Plans Contributed by: Brenda Stephenson The University of Tennessee

3. Four Themes for Planning • Creating authentic experiences • Integrating vocabulary development • Creating opportunities for self-expression • Providing deaf role models

4. Authentic experiences • Language and knowledge will be acquired when the context in which they are presented is meaningful to deaf children • Make connections to real-world experiences • The experience is the same wherever it occurs • Examples? Scripts and schemas…not day of the week

5. Integrating vocabulary development • Words are parts of related concepts • Occur in bunches or collections • Words are presented in contexts • Do not appear in isolation • Contexts define and refine meaning • Words are everywhere • Examples?

6. Creating opportunities for self-expression • An opportunity to practice elaborate verbal skills • An opportunity for definition and refinement of ideas • Important in testing • Reveals the depth of understanding • Examples?

7. Providing Deaf role models • Provides a positive image of adult behavior • Shows the means for success • Examples?

8. Constructivist approach to learning • Learning is the product of social interactions between groups of learners • How do you establish this in a classroom?

9. Six Elements of a Unit Plan • 1. Preparing the unit or lesson • 2. Designing the lessons • 3. Introducing the students to the language of the topic • 4. Engaging students in self- expression • 5. Planning authentic experiences • 6. Creating a reading center • 7. Assessment

10. Three Elements for Unit Planning • What do you want students to know, understand and be able to do? (Concept mapping) • What evidence will you collect that will document that the desired learning has been achieved? • What “enabling knowledge” and skills are needed?

11. The Unit Organizer • Helps contextualize the unit by relating unit content to previous and future units and to bigger course ideas. • Helps students understand the unit’s main ideas through a map. • Is a tool that allows teachers to plan by determining essential questions that can guide student learning. • Provides a structure for students to track assignments.

12. How to Construct a Concept Map • Identify the idea or ideas you want to map. • Arrange concepts in a pattern that best represents the information • Use a shape such as a rectangle, circle, an oval or a triangle to enclose each term or concept • Use straight lines to link related terms. Each line should link only two concepts. • Label each line to identify the relationship between two connected ideas. • Rework the map until it depicts the clearest and most accurate picture of relationships between key ideas.

13. Unit Questions • Questions can frame the most important and meaningful outcomes of the unit. • They are a way to organize and focus a unit • They are a way to stay true and relevant to the discipline under study • They are a natural means of monitoring progress and structurin learning

14. Using the Unit Organizer • Introduce the unit • Review with the organizer

15. Assessment Continuum • Informal interactions • Observing students and engaging in dialogues • Tests and quizzes • Performance tasks and projects