[Simtrainer-l] Contente Enhancement for First-Year Teachers

[Pat Parrott]

 Debby,

I think Unit then Frame is a good plan. Frame will be easy after putting
initial effort into Unit.

If your teachers are in Virginia, the SOL Curriculum Framework for each
content area is an excellent resource for creating Unit Organizers. Taking
the time to develop a Unit Organizer from the framework really helps
teachers delve into the standard to develop an understanding of the
critical content they are expected to teach - and what they are to place in
the "bubbles" of the organizer. Using the Framework and the Assessment
Blueprint will help teachers develop Unit Self-Test Questions and the Unit
Relationships section of the organizer. The Framework will also give
details for an Expanded Unit Map that, even if not shared with students,
can be kept by the teacher as a unit-at-a-glance picture of what they are
required to cover.

Once teachers learn the Frame, they can go into more depth with critical
pieces of content.

In my experience, developing Unit Organizers is essential to planning in
all content areas, but especially in social studies and science. At the
secondary level, they really help to focus attention on the critical
content to be taught. This is essential for teachers during planning, and
they can be effective study guides for students. At the elementary level,
so much time and energy is put into planning and teaching language arts and
math that science and social studies are often after-thoughts. By
developing Unit Organizers for these two subjects and revising/using them
year-to-year, teachers can easily see the critical content they need to
teach to help when planning time is minimal. Unit Organizers can usually be
made simple enough for students with some reading and spelling skills to
co-create, and sending the organizers home to parents at any grade can help
them understand what their children are learning to guide the work they do
at home.

I taught both of these routines to my preservice university students. They
did final projects developing one or two Unit Organizers, then one or two
Frames detailing critical content components. I always asked the elementary
teachers to focus their projects on social studies or science. My students
always remarked about how helpful Unit and Frame were in helping them
understand what they needed to teach and giving them an instructional
routine to introduce the information.

Hope this helps!

On Mon, May 23, 2022 at 1:11 PM debby.mossburg--- via Simtrainer-l <
simtrainer-l at lists.ku.edu> wrote:

> I am working with a teacher who is finishing up her requirements to become
> a CE PDer and is working on developing her Professional Learning Plan.
>
> Her audience is first-year teachers in her district and she's proposed
> beginning with the Unit Organizer Routine during the beginning of the year
> PD days and following up with the Framing Routine mid-year.
>
> I'd love to hear about your experience with new teachers and your thoughts
> about this sequence. It's been a while since I worked with new teachers,
> and I wonder if they are familiar enough with their curriculum to start off
> with the Unit Organizer. On the other hand, it might turn out to be a great
> way to help them plan from the start. Would you endorse UO first & then
> FRAME, or the other way around?
>
> Thanks so much for your thoughts,
>
> Debby Mossburg
> Virginia CE PDer, semi-retired :-)
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-- 
*Patricia Parrott, M.Ed.*
Co-Teaching Initiative Consultant
vdoe.coteach at gmail.com


*"You can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples in a
seed. When you teach, you never know how many lives you will influence --
you are teaching for eternity."*

*- Karen Jensen*
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