Critical Reflection: Looking for Coherence

My mission statement reflects my values and beliefs about student learning, growth, and productivity. I think that those beliefs and values are reflected in both the bloc plan and the fleshed out lesson. I feel that learning should not hurt and that students should look forward to coming to class because the learning climate created there is one that encourages, supports, and challenges. What I have created supports this. By encourgaging students to explore and apply what they have learned helps to nurture a love of learning as well as life-long learning. My lessons include a lot of role-laying, group activities, brainstorming, and project work. These all lend to students applying what they have learned in real-life situations, to owning the knowledge, and to seeing its relavance in the application.

I think that I used the UBD format as it was intended but I found many of the templates redundent. I don't know that I would necessarily use this format in lesson or unit planning but it does give me another option. As I used the bloc format to plan the unit, it did force me to think about the activities and assessment. It showed me that I do a lot more formative assessment then I realized and that reflects my beliefs. I feel that is important to constantly assess and give students feedback. Once I had the bloc plan complete it was easier to see the whole picture which helps to assure in lesson planning that each links to the previous and the next lesson.

Overall, learning UBD gives me one more option when planning units and lessons. I am looking forward to sharing this approach with collegues in the fall and spring as I take part in the health curriculum re-write. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say about it and if we can use UBD as we design curriculum.

And now, let summer begin. School is out!