Timothy Tumutod

Notes for Stepping Stones Chapter 7

-As a teacher you must keep asking myself, Where am I taking my students?

-An integral unit is a portion of a course or program that has a clear thematic focus and that:

1. Has internal unity

2. Has external consistency

3. Includes pertinent and meaningful aspects of reality that are related to, and may even go

beyond, the main discipline focus of the unit.

-1. An integral unit should be unified.

-As a teacher, you should direct all thought and activity towards a unifying theme.

-You capture the central purpose when you formulate your thematic statement.

-2. An integral unit is externally consistent.

-It explicitly intends to attain some of the overall aims of the school and, where

applicable, the goals of subject discipline(s).

-3. An integral unit is that it includes significant, natural inter-relations that exist between its

central concepts and aspects of reality that may go beyond its main focus.

-Including meaningful inter-relationships that go beyond the units main subject focus

encourages students to address significant, multifaceted problems and phenomena.

-Teachers can plan (or adapt) effective units in various ways using the following steps (not in

sequential order):

1. Determine the significance and relevance of a topic.

2. Brainstorm ideas, possibly using a planning chart.

3. Formulate a unit focus and intents. A thematic statement describes the overall approach and

main thrust of a unit. It includes the basic values, enduring understandings, key concpets, and
Timothy Tumutod

main skills you want students to acquire. Intended learning outcomes specify and extend the

thematic statement.

4. Design and choose suitable learning activities.

5. Review and incorporate linkages with government-mandated standards and outcomes.

6. Plan a schedule.

7. Select your resources.

8. Plan student assessment.

9. Review the effectiveness of your unit.

Reflection

This chapter for unit planning has been of great help to me because it has made me

ruminate on my experience during the two-week practicum and on my future as a professional

teacher. The question posed by the author at the start, Where are you taking your students? is

weighty; and as I continue to work on my Unit Plan, I have to contemplate on this question

perpetually. Frankly, I did not have this mindset at the onset because I thought that my task was

to simply fill the unit plan template. But as what Brummelen asserts throughout chapter seven, a

unit plan has to have internal unity, external consistency, and pertinent and meaningful aspects of

reality. I have to create a lesson plan that is internally unified which means that my main claim,

objectives, Biblical connections, assessments, etc., have to be in congruence to one another.

Moreover, my unit plan has to be aligned with the schools goals and other teachers subjects.

Lastly, I have to envision that my students learning will go beyond the walls of my classroom

into the real world.