During our class, we were assigned to complete a Social Studies Unit Outline, in which we had to pick a social studies topic, and a grade we wanted to align the unit with, then finally create a hypothetical unit. We were given an outline draft that had what we needed: An Overview and Rationale, 5-10 Vobaculary terms related to the unit, 3 Essential Questions, 3 Standards it aligned to, 4 Learning Targets, 2 Resources, 3-5 Activities, 3-5 Assessments (both formative and summative), and then we had to create an overall schedule of how this unit was going to look during a 3 week period. When looking at the Maine Common Core Teaching Standards I believe this artifact best aligns with Standard #7 Planning for Instruction. With that being said the description of the standard states: “The teacher draws upon knowledge of content areas, cross-disciplinary skills, learners, the community, and pedagogy to plan instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals.”
While reflecting on this artifact, I believe it was a great way to help me think about a unit as a whole. I was able to do a deep dive into the Civil Rights Era and the content that would be appropriate to use at an 8th-grade level. I believe this assignment will help contribute to expanding my pedagogical knowledge and becoming a metacognitive teacher some day as it will help me to be able to look back on this assignment and allow me to possibly use the content someday. I will also be able to pick apart the unit in the future and use pieces of it someday.
