Kaitlin Benson

April 7, 2016
Unit Plan Reflection
This internship has helped me to grow in not only in the craft of teaching, but in the art of
planning as well. I think this is most evident in my ability to unit plan. At the start of this year, I
think I was an amateur planner in the sense that I could plan out the big picture, but some of the
things I wanted to do was not realistic or at least not realistic for my students. I tried to do this
weird fusion of my mentor, MSU, and myself and it came our horrible. No one came out happy
with those results. However, as time passed, I think I was able to a better focus of what I wanted
my students to do and have it done on my terms, which I think was supposed to happen
throughout this journey, and it made my unit plans better. For this reflection, I will be using my
first and second unit plan that I turned in for this TE 804 class. Besides being assignments that I
have already turned it, I think they offer up two completely different places in my life. When I
completed the first unit plan, I was in the middle of my guided lead teach and I think this was
when I was proving to my mentor that I was a competent teacher because for a long time she
didnt feel that way. During this time, I was trying to find what worked for me and my teaching
and that unit plan was a result of that that. The second unit plan was created during my lead teach
and embodies my new status of an actual teacher. I was able to clearly map out where I wanted to
go and how I, as a teacher, could accomplish that goal for my students.
For both of the units, I used Pre-Calculus students at Ferndale High School. My classes
are comprised of 4 10th Graders, 7 11th Graders, and 55 12th Graders.
The first unit I planned for my classes was entitled, Distance, Circles, and Graphing,
which seems like a lot of things mixed into one, but I tried to create a storyline with all of these
topics. Since this was during my guided lead teach, I tried to stick to what my teacher

recommended for me to do and she wanted to see that happen. My approach to this lesson was to
use what the students already knew about distance to construct the distance formula and the
formula for a circle. From here, we learned about the center and radius of the circle and how to
graph given that information. After graphing circles, we discussed what it would look like to
have intersecting circles and other graphs intersecting with circles.
My second unit was entitled, Right Triangle Trigonometry, and this was more of my
baby as far as units went because I stepped outside the box for a lot of the things I wanted to do.
This unit was created during my lead teach and I took advantage of that. If Im being perfectly, I
feel more comfortable teaching trigonometry because Ive had more exposure to it. I knew where
I wanted to go and what information would be important for them to know academically and in
the real world. As far as sequencing goes, I went for the organic approach. Students already have
starting point and its Soh Cash Toa. Students can recite that acronym forwards and backwards
and I decided to take that and build into the reciprocal trig functions. From there, we were able to
learn about these six functions being applied to only right triangles and how to solve missing
information on right triangles. After, we discussed what we could do when we werent given a
right triangle. This led to us discovering the laws of sines and cosines and being able to find
missing information on those triangles. As I said earlier, I wanted them to see how this connect to
the real world and that began our conversation about the angle of elevation and depression.
These two angles help us to find the height for an object and or the distance between two objects.
We were able to talk about real life scenarios where the figures described made a right triangle
and when they didnt.
Looking back at these two lessons, I think I tried to follow what I believed backwards
planning looks like. As I stated earlier, I think Im pretty good at trying to plan where thing

should go long term, but as I said earlier, my first attempt at unit planning was reaching for too
many things. When I wrote my first reflection, I said that students needed more time than I gave
them. It seemed as though we were hoping along and they needed an additional day for each item
to make sure they really got it. During this unit, I also included a teaching experiment called
Pass the Problem and my lesson study which involved the graphing component of this unit. I
thought if I included a day for notes and two days for assignments along with the teaching
experiments, things would be fine and that would be enough and it wasnt. It was evident in the
formative assessment I gave as well as their unit test. I believe we were on a strict schedule at
that time and that was a bit disheartening, but I learned a lot from it and took that information
into my next set of units especially the right triangle trig unit. When I planned this unit, I gave
myself 1 day for notes and 2-3 days each for assignment and activities. During this unit, I tried to
incorporate a technology based activity where the students were able to test out different
triangles and ultimately derive the laws of sines and cosines. This activity took 2 days to do and I
was able to give them a homework assignment to do. I found that if I gave myself these extra
days from the get go, I had more wiggle room each day. Even if students were okay with each
topic we covered, they had that additional day to really get it. We finished within the time
mapped out and they definitely seemed to get a lot out of the unit based on their unit test, exit
slips, and the bellwork that I received from them.
Outside of planning, I think I got better at laying out my learning goals as well as
performing formative assessments. At the beginning of this experience, I think I was just writing
what I thought needed to be included in a unit. For my goals, I did not really know important
they were to fulfilling what you wanted to cover in a unit. As I taught, I realized more and more
that there were goals that did not need to be there or could have been switched up. During that

unit, I tried to tell the students the learning goals for each day and I dont think they took too
much mind to it. That was my first time being upfront with them in what they needed to learn, so
for them to react in such a way made sense. I also didnt focus on the math standards at all
during that unit. I was content driven, which, in my opinion, shouldnt happen because they
should be learning to be social and confident in doing the math as well. I think I was able to
make those corrections in my second lesson plan. Like I said earlier, I tried to approach this unit
in a natural way so all of the goals were clumped in such a way that they could all work as one
for each topic I taught. I also include more of the math standards in my lesson. I wanted my
students to be able to persevere through the unit and again a better sense of reasoning and their
own confidence in math. I think I felt more inclined to this because this was a new topic for my
students and I understood how easily they could get confused, frustrated, and down trotted they
could be. In thinking about it more, I think I put myself more so in the shoes of a student and
tried to think of things I should be able to do and how I could create goals that were obtainable.
In regards to the assessments, I think Ive gotten better at actually saying what they are
and how to use them properly in the classroom. At the start of the year, I was not very good at
giving formative assessments and I didnt really plan for them. During the first unit plan when I
decided to use them, I tried to stick to things I knew, which was an exit slip or the unit test. I
didnt really go outside of the box and I think was okay because it was my first time actually
trying something different that I didnt really use. Once I used them, I was really pleased by the
information I was getting because that helped me to see where they were at, though I couldnt
really change anything at the time. During the second unit plan, I used exit slips and bellwork as
formative assessments. I also added in kahoot, a game styled review program, and poll
everywhere, a polling site, to gather more information on what my students were learning. I tried

to do new things so that I could expand my repertoire and get my kids to show me what they
knew.
In talking about my goals and the formative assessment, its only natural to speak on my
ability to analyze my students work. Having evidence to back up whether or not you reached all
of your goals is very important and I think this something I need to continue to work on. I dont
think I did a very good job at really sitting down and letting my analysis of the work craft how I
designed the future lessons. As I explained earlier, I did not have much wiggle room during my
first lesson to calibrate things. I tried to cover more things in the review, but that wasnt going to
change anything. In my second unit plan, I tried to have these formative assessments at the end
of the first work day for the students so that way I could look at what they were doing and
address misconceptions the next day. I asked my students if they read my comments on their
slips and some of them said yes and more said no. I was a little bit sad by this, but I assured
myself that talking about it in class catches those that dont actually read what I wrote. Dont get
me wrong, my students did reach the goals that they needed to, but I think I could have done a
better job at letting their assessments navigate my teaching. This is definitely something I wish to
work on and get better at. Hopefully once I matriculate onto an actual full time teaching job I can
push myself further to plan incorporate more time to analyzing student work and having days to
focus just on their responses and letting them digest what my comments were to their work.
Overall, I think that I have grown in my unit planning skills and I have come to
appreciate this way of planning. I have tried to plan day to day and it was monstrous because
there was no rhyme or reason to things and everything seemed all over the place. Now, looking
back, I am able to set a goal and figure out what I want to do and how I can be successful in
making my students successful. I think, as a teacher and just as a person in general, thats really

all that you can ask for and Im happy to say that I have learned this lesson. This something that
I will forever carry with me throughout my teaching career and Im glad to have learned it now
when I can continue to perfect it.