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Actionable Strategies and Resources for: Designing High Quality Units

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Actionable Strategies and Resources for: Designing High Quality Units

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Go to MiniPD Core Courses to find out more about the course above.

Key words this month: High Quality Unit Design; Pedagogy; Curriculum; Assessment; Metacognition; Reflection; Interdisciplinary; Transdisciplinary.

- Bookmark this page - Jump into the card that appeals, or access content in daily bite-size chunks.

- Scroll horizontally along. Scroll each card vertically. Click links and images for take-aways.

Thank you to MiniPD Coaches, IB and Non-IB educators, who have co-constructed this calendar with the MiniPD Team.

Stay safe. Stay well. Stay connected.

The MiniPD Team
Get in touch: hello@minipd.com
minipd.com

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Start Planning with Concepts Rather than Content

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Plan with Concepts in Mind - A Math Focus

MiniPD Coach , Nuriye Singh writes,

- Often, the planning of a unit starts with the question "What is the list of topics I need to cover?"
- How about changing the question slightly and asking "What is the overarching understanding and concept(s) in this topic?"
- then asking;
"How will the learners show their understanding? What is the evidence of learning?"
- Once these questions have been answered, the design of the learning experiences can start.

For Math teachers, it is not always easy to start with concepts. The Underground Mathematics website is an excellent starting point to see the connections between topics and concepts in mathematics.

Connect with Nuriye here for a 1-1 conversation or read her articles.

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Overview

Our resources are organised into topics or stations on a map or tubemap showing the connections between them.

Watch this video or use the preceding menu to find out more.

The map

The mathematics has been organised along a system of tube lines, which reflect big themes that run through mathematics. The tubemap offers a way to navigate to resources for teaching a particular area of mathematics; resources can be accessed by clicking on a station name. Some stations are still in development and this is indicated by a construction symbol.

You can access the map at any time by clicking the Map button in the main menu.

Stations

Each station features an overarching question that could be used to stimulate curiosity. There are a number of key questions that summarise the ideas that arise in the resources. You can filter resources by selecting a key question. You can also filter resources by tube line, if you wish to choose a resource with a particular emphasis.

The resources that are available at each station may come under three headings. Resources that introduce new ideas relating to the station are in the "Introducing" section. "Developing" resources may build on these ideas or earlier work. "Review questions" are mostly drawn from past examination questions and have been chosen as ones that are interesting in nature and require non-routine thinking.

Resources

To help you find the resources you are looking for, we have classified them according to twelve resource types.

Resources are divided into sections. In some cases this may be a warm-up followed by a larger task, and others may have a problem followed by a suggestion of how to tackle it. Almost all resources contain a solution or a "Things you might have noticed" section. This may help you to think about questions you might ask students, to see areas where students could get stuck, or offer further insight into how you might use the resource in your classroom. Further support is offered in the teacher notes.

Pervasive ideas

By clicking on a pervasive idea you will find a description of how the idea arises within the resources. If pervasive ideas are highlighted in a resource they appear in the sidebar (or bottom-bar on a small screen) and in the list of resources at the station (on a wide screen).
What are pervasive ideas?
Search

Use the Search button in the top menu bar to open the search dialog.

You can search for resources by title, keywords or text within the resource. Review questions can be searched by question Ref. You can also search for pervasive ideas and mathematical processes such as visualising.

You can also browse all our material with filtering options by clicking the Browse button in the main menu.

Saving resources

You can save a resource for later by adding it to your resource collection. To do this click the star next to the resource title. Note you must log in or register to use this facility. To access your resource collection, click the User button in the top menu bar then Your resource collection.

Within your resource collection, you can organise your resources by creating ordered subcollections. To add a resource to a subcollection, click the add to subcollection icon in your resource collection table. To select a subcollection, use the drop-down list above the table. You can also generate a PDF of resources from a subcollection, which could be used to generate your own exam from our review questions, for example.

Bundles and more

The More menu in the top right contains links to the Underground hub, our About and contact page and the Your mathematical classroom section of the site.

Our About page contains a video explaining our philosophy.

The Your mathematical classroom area of the site is accessible from the More menu and has been coloured purple to distinguish it from the rest of the site, as well as having its own menu once inside this area. It contains support for using our resources in the classroom as well as professional development opportunities. This includes the Bundles page, which contains small collections of resources that have a particular focus or goal, our Resources in action page, which provides detailed teacher support for a handful of resources, our blog, upcoming and recorded webinars, a courses page, and information about our Champions programme.

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A level maths teaching resources | Underground Mathematics

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Rich resources for teaching A level maths, enabling all students to explore the connections that underpin mathematics. The resources are free for all users.

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Learn a New Strategy to Develop Conceptual Thinking

The MiniPD Team invites you to add this Concept-based Learning Guide to your teaching toolkit.

Access practical strategies and resources

Use the self-reflection rubric to support your own concept-based learning journey

Access suggested reads for group book studies

Concept-based Learning Guide by Sarah Plews, Head of Content and Events, MiniPD.

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Which teaching approaches can support concept-based learning?

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Join the MiniPD Twitter slow chat

Designing High Quality Units
@FariaMiniPD #MiniPDchat

The MiniPD Team

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Make Personal Connections when Designing a Quality Unit Plan

MiniPD Coach, Nick Nwolisa, writes,

As pedagogues, we might not have actual real life personal connections to all topics in any particular subject, and this should not be the expectation in pedagogy practices. However, a quality unit plan is one designed based on our personal experiences which comes from understanding global context and making connections.
-Nick Nwolisa

Connect with Nick Nwolisa on MiniPD

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Consider Student Voice

MiniPD Coach and MiniCourse designer, Ali Ezzeddine, invites you to read this article, Do you hear their voice?  (written in English and Arabic).

Ali says, make sure you listen to your students when you design a unit.

Connect with Ali Ezzeddine on MiniPD here.

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Do you hear their voice? | SharingPYP Blog

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Unit Planning & Practice - Courses for PYP Educators

Dive into bite-size courses including:

Unit Planning in the PYP with Erica Chiotti

Approaches to Learning in the PYP with Christine Lang

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international mindedness
pyp
primary years
inquiry-based 
conceptual understanding
pyp unit design
approaches to learning
non-cognitive skills
executive skills

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Essential course bundle for every PYP educator, from PYP unit design, to best classroom practices for nurturing an inquiry culture.

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Get a Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction Book

MiniPD Coach and MiniCourse designer, Ali Ezzeddine, recommends reading these books:

Lynn Erickson, Lois Lanning, Rachel French: Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom

Lois Lanning: Designing a Concept-Based Curriculum for English Language Arts

Tania Lattanzio and Andrea Muller: Taking the complexity out of concepts

Jennifer Wathall: Concept-Based Mathematics: Teaching for Deep Understanding in Secondary Schools

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Make Authentic Happen!

MiniPD Coach and MiniCourse designer, Jarrett Brown writes,

When exploring authenticity, consider the GRASPS or RAFT but also think about these authentic ideas from Galileo especially "Adds Value Beyond the School", "Engage in Active Exploration", "Connecting with Expertise" and having "Elaborated Forms of Communication".

If students can use service learning to add value beyond the school, they are practicing what they have learned. Imagine an advisory class where they studied test-taking skills and then gave gifts to the DP students to calm their nerves before a test; or a PE class where they learned collaboration techniques to create games to play with another local school. The ideas are endless when we think of adding value beyond schools.

These ideas go hand-in-hand with the GRASPS and RAFT models because they focus on giving the students an audience and purpose. When these two areas are apparent, it goes a long way in showing meaningfulness in a unit.

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The WHY of GRASPS assessment design

GRASPS is a model advocated for by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe to guide teachers in designing authentic performance-based assessment. It's a form of assessment that engages learners to employ their thinking skills and demonstrate application of essential knowledge, conceptual understanding, and skills acquired throughout a unit of learning.

Wiggins defined authentic assessment as "...Engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replica of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field." (1993, qtd. by Jon Mueller).

The main takeaway for me is that teachers can use the GRASPS assessment model to:

engage students through contextualized learning;

provide simulations of real-world situations or challenges that adults might encounter;

create opportunities for students to practice transfer of learning;

foster curiosity and building experiences of students;

develop project management skills of students.

The WHAT of GRASPS assessment model

To help educators construct authentic assessment, Wiggins and McTighe's came up with GRASPS model. GRASPS is an acronym for teachers to:

Goal: establish the challenge, issue or problem to solve;

Role: give students a role that they might be taking in a familiar real-life situation;

Audience: identify the target audience whom students are solving the problem for or creating the product for;

Situation: create the scenario or explain the context of the situation;

Product/Performance and Purpose: paint a clear picture of the WHAT and of the product creation or the performance;

Standards & Criteria for Success: inform students how their work will be assessed by the assumed audience.

Is the GRASPS assessment model misunderstood?​

A set of sentence stems has been provided to help teachers construct a performance task and often is introduced in IB workshops. It might be because limited time was allotted for teachers to explore thoroughly the designing principles of using the GRASPS assessment model; therefore, the summative task is sometimes described in the format of a GRASPS performance task but fails to illustrate an actual real-world problem or issue that can inspire students to take authentic or simulated action on.

An example might be:

Goal: Your goal is to write a short story.

Role: You are a middle school student.

Audience: Your target audience is your teacher, and students and parents in our school community.

Situation: You have been asked by your school community to write a short story. (This section is sometimes omitted by teachers as a clear situation is not identified.)

Product/Performance and Purpose: write a 800 word short story to entertain others.

Standards & Criteria for Success: You will be assessed against criteria B, C and D.​

It might look good at first by framing the assessment through GRASPS model, but it's like déjà vu all over again. It is definitely a step-up when teachers begin to use this model when creating a summative assessment task. However, this is still very much like a traditional assessment task. First of all, the range of the target audience is too big. The way an author writes to entertain young children, teens, or adults is very different. The situation described above is unlikely to happen as it is vague and more details are needed.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is that MYP teachers often inform students that they will be assessed against criteria B, C, and D. But what do criteria B, C and D mean? If we want students to organize, produce text, and use language (MYP Language and Literature criteria BCD), wouldn't it be more effective for teachers to clearly specify the criteria and engage students in understanding the assessment objectives and strands? We can't expect students to develop assessment capabilities without explicitly involving them in developing assessment literacy.

Develop student metacognition through GRASPS

In my humble opinion, through the use of the GRASPS assessment model, we can also create opportunities for students to develop their metacognition. In order to create a product or solve a problem effectively and efficiently, students first need to clarify the task, identify their strengths and weakness, set appropriate, challenging goals, analyze the context, chunk the big task into small subtasks within the timeline, seek feedback for improvement, and self-evaluate their work against the success criteria before the final submission. During the process of product creation, teachers provide both explicit and implicit feedback and guide students to monitor their progress. Frequent check-ins are essential. It should never be the case that teachers give students a big project and only find out that students have not addressed a requirement one or two days before the due date.

Refocus GRASPS implementation

Teachers and students can both benefit from the use of the GRASPS assessment model. In this poster design, I refocused the use of the GRASPS assessment model and created essential questions respectively to guide teachers in designing the GRASPS authentic assessment, and students in developing their metacognition through conducting the GRASPS assessment.

As mentioned previously, teachers do not always set up a clear situation for the assessment task. In the MYP framework, when illustrating the situation or creating the scenario for the task, teachers can refer back to the MYP global context exploration predetermined. It is also through the careful design of the scenario or situation, students can be challenged to think about intercultural communication and thus develop international-mindedness.

This poster can be downloaded as a PDF file by simply clicking on the image below.

Reference

Mueller, Jon. "What Is Authentic Assessment?" Authentic Assessment Toolbox, jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm#definitions.
Spencer, John. "Five Structures for Helping Students Learn Project Management." John Spencer, 20 Aug. 2019, www.spencerauthor.com/project-management/.Quigley , Alex, et al. "Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning." Education Endowment Foundation, (Education Endowment Foundation), 27 Apr. 2018, educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/metacognition-and-self-regulated-learning/.
​基于整体表现的GRASPS评估设计与学生元认知

如果希望閱讀本篇文章的中文版，請拜訪 www.sohu.com/a/403764639_120362876
​謝謝IB教學研的翻譯。

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GRASPS Assessment Design and Student Metacognition - alisonyang.com

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Help students develop assessment capabilities by explicitly developing students' assessment literacy through the GRASPS assessment model.

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Designing High Quality Units: What practices support the design of high quality units? (5-10 minute read)

- Access more MiniPD Coach articles and resources by creating an account at no cost
- Get to know MiniPD Coaches experienced in language teaching and learning who can support you 1-on-1!

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We know that deliberate and intentional planning is the bedrock of being a strategic and effective practitioner. To quote Grant Wiggins, " Teaching is a means to an end, and planning precedes teaching. The most successful teaching begins, therefore, with clarity about desired learning outcomes and about the evidence that will show that learning has occurred " (Grant Wiggins et al, 2011).
So, what practices support the design of high quality units? T ake 5 minutes to scroll through daily strategies:
Want to dig deeper? Read a MiniPD Coach article below:

How can we ensure our planning engages and challenges all students? By Christine Lan g. Christine writes, "On-going formative assessment helps us to know each student's starting points so we can focus on planning for and supporting the learning and engagement of each one of them." Her article provides "practical support for designing high-quality units and lessons for all ability levels, including ideas for school-level and student-centered curriculum support, scaffolding and differentiation ." Christine, MiniPD Coach, is an original author of the International Baccalaureate's Primary Years Programme (IB PYP) and her most recent school-based role was as the Primary School Principal at the Vienna International School.

Foundations for High Quality Units: Concepts, Care and Ownership by Erica Chiotti. Erica writes, "Designing high quality units can be a dynamic and challenging process. When the appropriate building blocks are in place, a foundation is created upon which student engagement, empathy and understanding can thrive! Some of these building blocks may include: identifying a concept driven focus, invoking a sense of urgency or care and inviting student agency within learning engagements." Erica, MiniPD Coach, has served in education for over 20 years, including work as a classroom teacher, university professor and instructional mentor and coach.

Designing High Quality Units: Where to Start by Ali Ezzeddine. Ali comments that " we all struggle sometimes to design high quality units." Ali shares 8 tips on how to design high quality units to support the design of engaging and authentic planning . Ali, MiniPD Coach, is an educational consultant and is a certified international trainer from Lynn Erickson Institute to lead concept based workshops.

Making your Unit Meaningful and Authentic by Jarrett Brown. Jarret invites us to consider, how to design units for engagement. His article "explores different ways to consider exciting project-based learning activities that are authentic and meaningful." Jarret, MiniPD Coach, is Assistant Head of Secondary/MYP Coordinator at Leman International School in Chengdu, MYP Workshop Leader, and Building Quality Curriculum senior reviewer.

Features of a Good MYP Unit - With Focus on Individuals and Societies by Nick Nwolisa. Nick's article outlines a good unit "entails a good understanding of the global context, first to the teacher, ensures that both the key concepts and the related concepts are appropriate, then teaching these concepts first to students, making connections during the lessons, identifying other areas of learning, such as developing the approaches to learning skills, and assessing other skills through appropriate pedagogical assessment methods." Nick, MiniPD Coach, currently works at The International School of Azerbaijan, and has experience in the NGO sector and as a journalist.

Designing high quality unit planning sits at the very heart of effective classroom instruction. "Long-term achievement gains are more likely when teachers teach for understanding of transferable concepts and processes while giving learners multiple opportunities to apply their learning in meaningful (i.e., authentic) contexts. The requisite knowledge and skills are learned and long recalled through the process of actively constructing meaning (i.e., coming to an understanding) and in transferring learning to new situations" (Wiggins et al., 2011).

Join the Conversation

We invited educators from around the world to join us in a Coaches-in-Conversation on our theme, Designing High Quality Units, in June 2022. The recording will be shared here in mid June.

Wanting to further the conversation?
Designing High Quality Units
Needing a thought partner? A critical friend?

Schedule one-to-one and small group coaching sessions with any of our inspirational MiniPD Coaches mentioned above. They can support you and your team to nudge your practices forward.

Want to learn more?

Erickson, L., Lanning, L., & Frech, R., (2017) Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom. London. Corwin.

MiniPD Coaches (May, 2022), Designing High Quality Units - Strategies from Educators

Stern, J., et al, (2021) Learning That Transfers. London. Corwin.

Wiggins, G., & McTigue, J, The Understanding of Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units. Alexandria, VA. ASCD.

Want to keep connected?

You will receive a newsletter at the beginning of each month with pro-tips, tools and resources.

You will have access to information on live events and our bite-size action-based calendar created for, with and by our community of international school educators.

You can access articles published by MiniPD experienced Coaches, IB and non-IB international school educators, on topics that matter to you.

You can connect with our experienced Coaches quickly and easily for ongoing one-to-one supportive conversations.

What topics matter to you?

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Designing High Quality Units: What practices support the design of high quality units? - MiniPD

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We know that deliberate and intentional planning is the bedrock of being a strategic and effective practitioner. To quote Grant Wiggins, " Teaching is a means to an end, and planning precedes teaching. The most successful teaching begins, therefore, with clarity about desired learning outcomes and about the evidence that will show that learning has occurred " (Grant Wiggins et al, 2011).

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This map shows how one class used a concept to both drive and ground their learning. 

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Try This: Concept Mapping

MiniPD Coach and MiniCourse designer, Erica Chiotti, writes,

Early in the unit designing process, consider the concepts that can drive the focus of your inquiry. Utilizing this approach can lead to learning that is relevant, universal, timeless, abstract and open-ended. Students are able to gain deeper understanding and transfer their new knowledge and skills to other contexts both inside and outside of the classroom. Concepts can add breadth and depth in learning and provide opportunities for connecting to local and global standardized learning targets. Teachers may model and curate mentor texts connected to a particular standard while also providing opportunities for students to explore their interests within the concept and make connections across content areas.

Co-constructing a Concept Map with students can provide opportunities for learning pathways and student agency as the inquiry unfolds. This experience may help students better understand the complexity of their new learning and spark a sense of wonder and curiosity in the classroom!

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Plan backwards from assessment tasks.

MiniPD Coach, Hannah Bradley, writes,

Backwards planning involves starting with the end in mind.

Begin by constructing an assessment task that covers the necessary skills and knowledge required in your unit.

Complete the assessment task yourself - this enables you to see how straightforward and accessible the task is for students, if it does indeed cover what you intended it to and allows you to easily make any necessary modifications.

Now start planning the unit by working backwards from this task to separate the necessary skills and knowledge into distinct lessons.

You should end up with a series of well sequenced lessons that allow students to develop the skills and knowledge as initially outlined in the assessment task.

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Formative Assessment Lessons: An Integral Part of A High Quality Unit

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Design the Learning Pathway

MiniPD Coach, Nuriye Singh writes,

Once the overarching understanding(s) and concepts, as well as the summative assessment, are identified, it is time to design the path of learning.

What are the prior knowledge and skills?

How will learners reach the goal of the unit?

What are common misconceptions/challenges? And how can we support learners to overcome these?

While designing the learning experiences, there is a need for multiple checkpoints: formative assessments. There are a variety of ways of formative assessments. Some could be as simple as entry/exit cards and some could take the entire lesson as they are also learning opportunities.

The Mathematics Assessment Project website provides some excellent formative assessment lessons for Math teachers.

Connect with Nuriye here for a 1-1 conversation or read her articles.

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Mathematical goals

This lesson unit is intended to help you assess how well students are able to:

Recognize the differences between equations and identities.

Substitute numbers into algebraic statements in order to test their validity in special cases.

Resist common errors when manipulating expressions such as 2(x - 3) = 2x - 3; (x + 3)² = x² + 3².

Carry out correct algebraic manipulations.

It also aims to encourage discussion on some common misconceptions about algebra.

Introduction

The lesson unit is structured in the following way:

Before the lesson, students work individually on an assessment task that is designed to reveal their current understanding and difficulties. You then review their work and create questions for students to answer in order to improve their solutions.

After a whole-class introduction, students work in small groups on a collaborative discussion task.

Students return to their original task and try to improve their own responses.

Materials required

Each student will need two copies of the assessment task Equations and Identities, a mini-whiteboard, a pen, and an eraser.

Each small group of students will need Card Set: Always, Sometimes, or Never True? (cut into cards before the lesson), a marker pen, a glue stick, and a large sheet of paper for making a poster.

There is a projector resource to support the whole-class introduction.

Time needed

15 minutes before the lesson, a 1-hour lesson, and 15 minutes in a follow-up lesson. Timings given are approximate and will depend on the needs of the class.

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This lesson unit is intended to help you assess how well students are able to: Recognize the differences between equations and identities. Substitute numbers into algebraic statements in order to test their validity in special cases. Resist common errors when manipulating expressions such as 2(x - 3) = 2x - 3; (x + 3)² = x² + 3².

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المناهج والوحدات أسئلة للتدبّر
Units and Curriculum Reflection Questions

Slim Abed, MiniPD Coach and MiniCourse Designer

المناهج والوحدات أسئلة للتدبّر:

مناهج التدريس من أكبر المعضلات في العالم العربي ورغم ما شهدته في السنوات الأخيرة من تطوّر في عدة بلدان عربية فهي تحتاج إلى إعادة نظر مستمرة لتواكب الفتوحات العلمية في مجالات التدريس والتربية.

تنقسم المناهج العربية إلى مناهج رسمية تتكفل بها إدارة المناهج في وزارة التربية، ومناهج دولية خاصة تتكفل بها مؤسسات عالمية، أو مناهج تجارية تنهض على إعدادها مؤسسات خاصة وتقوم بتسويقها إلى المدارس الخاصة كمناهج رديفة لمناهج وزارات التربية.

والأسئلة المطروحة هنا للتأمل وإعادة النظر:

- هل تقوم هذه المناهج على اختلافها على مقاربة (الوحدات والمواضيع، أو الأجناس الأدبية، أو المقاربة التاريخية، أو مقاربة التدريس بالقصة، أو مقاربة حلّ المشكلات أو مقاربة المشاريع، أو مقاربة الاستيعاب المبني على المفاهيم....) واضحة وعملية وواقعية بالنسبة إلى الطالب؟

- هل توفر هذه المناهج في مختلف وحداتها الفرصة للطالب للتعرف إلى أدبه المحلي والعربي والعالمي؟

- ما النصوص الأدبية وغير الأدبية التي تضمها هذه الوحدات؟ وكيف يتم انتقاؤها؟

- هل هذه المناهج والوحدات تقوم على الفصل بين المواد أم الدّمج لتتداخل المواد في منهج اللغة ولتتكون لدى الطالب القدرة على الاستيعاب الموسوعي الشامل؟

- هل مناهجنا العربية ووحداتها منسجمة مع ثقافتنا وتاريخنا وحضارتنا وبيئتنا وتراعي جغرافيا أوطاننا؟

- هل مخرجات مناهجنا فعلا توازن بين الجانب النفسي، والبدني، والاجتماعي، والحضاري، وتعزز في طلابنا القدرة على التفكير النقدي والإبداعي وحلّ المشكلات؟

- بعد كم سنة نحتاج إلى إعادة النظر في مناهجنا وتطويرها لبناء رؤية مستقبلية واضحة لطلابنا؟

هي أسئلة للتدبّر.

Units and Curriculum Reflection Questions (translation)

Teaching curricula is one of the most difficult issues in the Arab world, and despite recent progress in several Arab countries, it requires ongoing revision to keep up with scientific advances in the fields of teaching and education.

Official curricula sponsored by the Curriculum Department in the Ministry of Education, private international curricula sponsored by international institutions, and commercial curricula prepared by private institutions and marketed to private schools as curricula parallel to the curricula of ministries of education are the three types of Arabic curricula.

The following are some questions for thought and consideration:

Is the request for different curricula based on a clear, practical, and realistic approach (units and topics, literary genres, story-telling, problem-solving, projects, or concept-based comprehension)?

Do these curricula, in their various units, expose students to local, Arab, and international literature?

What texts, both literary and non-literary, are included in these units? And how is it chosen?

Are these curricula and units based on subject separation or subject merging so that the subjects overlap in the language syllabus and the student has comprehensive encyclopedic comprehension?

Are our Arabic curricula and units consistent with our culture, history, civilization, and environment, and do they take into account our countries' geography?

Is the output of our curricula truly balanced in terms of psychological, physical, social, and cultural aspects, and does it improve our students' ability to think critically and creatively in order to solve problems?

How long do we need to reconsider and develop our curricula in order to provide a clear future vision for our students?

These are valid concerns.

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Jump back into the MiniPD Twitter slow chat

Designing High Quality Units
@FariaMiniPD #MiniPDchat

The MiniPD Team

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Unit Planning - Align Instructional Plans to Support Student Learning

These are the basic key elements of a quality unit in any curriculum: MEANINGFUL, RELEVANT and RELATABLE. You can achieve all three if you have the global context right. -Nick Nwolisa

When unit planning consider the following:

1. Expectations: Clear explanations for what students will do, why, and criteria for achievement.

2. Continuity and consistency: For students to be successful it is very important that there is continuity and consistency across units.
Share unit components: Share with your students what each unit will include.

3. Adjust as needed: These are times when adjustments to instruction can be beneficial. If no changes can be made in the moment, consider how a lesson or unit could be revised in the future.

4. Scaffolding: Consider the diverse learning needs of your students and how scaffolding the content will benefit learners. Providing students with multiple exposures to concepts helps them deepen their understanding.

For further reading: Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation - Unit Planning

Connect with Nick Nwolisa on MiniPD

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Watch Designing High Quality Units: MiniPD Coaches in Conversation (60 mins) with Erica Chiotti, Jarrett Brown and Nuriye Singh.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH at no cost

MiniPD Coaches are experienced IB and Non-IB International Teachers, Leaders and Consultants.

The MiniPD Team

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This chart was the result of a provocation in which students were shown images of historical and current human migration.

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Why Are We Learning About This?

MiniPD Coach and MiniCourse designer, Erica Chiotti writes,

High quality units result in an elevated student engagement and ownership of their learning. One way to achieve this is to invoke a sense of urgency and care during the early stages of the unit. Provocations are one way in which students can experience challenges to their current knowledge and understanding. By providing an opportunity for students to think differently, teachers can then engage in conversations around the following questions:

Why might people care to learn about this?

Why is it important to understand it better?

How can we learn more?

In addition to providing a co-constructed sense of purpose, these learning engagements have the power to facilitate student initiated action as a result of new learning. To aid in boosting the sense of urgency and care, think about any local or global current events that may connect to your learning. Guest speakers with personal connection points and passion for your unit may also elevate the sense of relevance for your students.

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Slim Abed

تنوّع الموارد من شروط الوحدة الناجحة
A diverse set of resources

Slim Abed, MiniPD Coach and MiniCourse Designer

إنّ التنوّع في الموارد المستخدمة في الوحدة مهمّ جدا لشدّ انتباه الطالب وجعله فاعلا في عمليّة التعلّم، فيحرّكه دافع داخلي للبحث عن المعلومة والتعمق فيها.

ولا بد من حسن اختيار النص ومراعاة مستوى الطالب القرائي من خلال لغة النص ومدى رمزيته أو نوعه وموضوعه وطوله والغاية منه. كما يجب أن تراوح هذه النصوص بين النص الأدبي والنص غير الأدبي والنص الخيالي والنص العلمي. كما يجب أن يتنوع الكتاب بين كتاب محليين وعالميين بالإضافة إلى تنوّع السياق الزماني والمكاني. وكذلك يجب على المدرس الموازنة بين النصوص المكتوبة، والرقمية، والمرئية والمسموعة.

إنّ إعداد وحدة ناجحة عمل يشبه إعداد كعكة لذيذة الطعم ومتعدّدة المكوّنات.

إنّ الوحدة الناجحة هي التي تعقد جسورا بين الطالب وحياته الواقعية وما يحتاجه يوميا وما يعيشه من تحدّيات، إنّ نجاح الوحدة يقاس بما تطرحه على الطالب من أسئلة تدفعه للبحث عن الإجابة وتشجّع فيه الفضول المعرفيّ والبحث عن المعلومة.

A diverse set of resources (translation)
The variety of resources used in the unit is critical for capturing the student's attention and engaging him/her/them in the learning process, as he/she/they is/are motivated by an internal motivation to seek out and investigate information.

It is necessary to carefully select the text and consider the student's reading level through the language of the text as well as the extent of its symbolism, type, subject, length, and purpose.

Literary texts, non-literary texts, fictional texts, and scientific texts should all be included.

In addition to the diversity of the temporal and spatial context, the book should include a mix of local and international writers.

The teacher must also strike a balance between written, digital, visual, and audio texts.

Putting together a successful unit is like making a delicious multi-ingredient cake.

The successful unit is one that builds bridges between the student and his real life, what he needs daily, and the challenges he faces.

The success of the unit is measured by the questions it poses to the student, which encourages cognitive curiosity and the search for information.

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Make the Most of Interdisciplinary Units

Mini PD Coach and MiniCourse designer, Jarrett Brown, writes,

Interdisciplinary units can be great opportunities to have meaningful action outside of the classroom, BUT they can also be a headache for teachers to plan and coordinate. How can we as schools have a good plan for interdisciplinary units?

First and foremost, teachers need to have time to work and collaborate with other teachers in different departments. There should be time allocated for before, during and after the interdisciplinary unit.

Next, it should have equitable content that can integrate from the subjects collaborating, purposeful and useful. I have seen many interdisciplinary units fail in the past because they were not sustainable, or the content was mostly from one subject group. As a school, work towards meaningful interdisciplinary curriculum that subject groups can agree upon.

Finally, pick topics that will be engaging for the students. Some of my favorite interdisciplinary units have involved getting out in the real world to practice what has been learned, such as a Business unit to sell a product for service or an Amazing Race scavenger hunt.

There are more examples of interesting project-based learning activities here, here, and here.

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PBL, a term you've probably seen a few times as a teacher. But what does it actually mean? And how do you use it in your classroom? PBL, or project-based learning. That's what this post is about.

Project-based learning - Definition

PBL or project-based learning is a learning method in which students identify a real-world problem and develop its solution. Students gain knowledge and skills by working for a longer period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging or complex question, problem or challenge.

Guide your students to identify, through research, a real-world problem of which they have to develop a solution using evidence to support the claim. They have to present their project through a multimedia approach based on a set of 21st-century tools.

Students show what they learn as they go through the unit, interact with the lessons, collaborate with each other and assess themselves and each other.

Why should you use project-based learning?

Project-based learning is not something new, teachers just didn't use it a lot when you were young. The ordinary way of teaching is teaching with disconnected lessons. Daily lessons that teach a skill which fits into a unit based on a topic or a theme. But, each lesson works independently and doesn't connect other units in a learning story.

Besides creating a learning story that connects everything to each other, there are plenty other reasons to use PBL:
1. PBL provides opportunities for students to use technology
Most students are using technology and apps almost every day. They are familiar with and enjoy using a variety of tech tools. As it happens, tech tools can be a perfect fit with project-based learning. With those tools and apps, teachers and students can find the right resources, information, create products and collaborate more effectively. They can even reach out to communities, experts and partners.
2. PBL promotes lifelong learning
Because technology is present, its use enables students, teachers and administrators to reach out beyond the school building. PBL also teaches students to take control of their learning, the first step as a lifelong learner.
3. PBL connect students and schools with the real world
Project-based learning enables students to solve problems and address issues important to them, their communities, and the world. Through PBL, students learn how to interact with adults and organizations. They are exposed to real workplaces and jobs so they will develop career interests. Even parents and other partners can be involved in certain projects.
4. PBL lends itself to formative and authentic assessment
Formative assessement allows us to systematically document a student's progress and development. Authentic assessment focuses on deep learning, asking thorough questions.

Why is this any different than any other class? Well, PBL encourages formative and authentic assessment by doing the following:

It allows students to demonstrate their capabilities while working independently.

It lets teachers have multiple assessment opportunities.

It shows the student's ability to apply skills such as doing research.

It develops a student's ability to work with other students, building teamwork and group skills.

The teacher learns more about the student as a person.

It helps the teachers communicate in meaningful ways with the student or a team. Being able to give meaningful feedback is very important.

5. PBL encourages students to be more engaged and to learn actively
The fact that students are working on a project that has to be the key of solving a problem, makes them more actively involved. A real project engages their mind and their hearts. It's a real world relevance for learning.
6. PBL builds skills for college, career and life
Success in life requires more than knowledge and skills. With PBL, students learn how to take initiative, be responsible and build a good attitude. They learn to build their confidence, solve problems, work in teams, and communicate ideas.
7. PBL encourages imagination and creativity
When you need to solve a problem, you have to be inventive and creative. PBL often asks to solve world class problems, so thinking out of the box is necessary. Because there are no real guidelines, visual design, drawing, and creating are very important elements within project based learning.

15 project-based learning ideas for in your classroom

Project-based learning has no magic plan you can use to guide you. It's flexible and it's a curriculum planning tool that's often used to "embed" other learning methods like game-based learning, blended learning, place-based learning, and so on.

This means you will need some inspiration to get a first taste of project-based learning. I went through some sites to find some challenging project-based learning examples. Here we go!

1. Plant and manage a garden to feed local homeless

2. Design an alert system to halt the spread of a deadly disease

3. Artfully illustrate the global history of civil rights

4. Film a documentary on a social issue few people see

5. Redesign the complete school, including new content areas, grading, collaboration and community involvement

6. Redesign public transport in your city

7. Create an interactive family tree with voice-overs from family members.

8. How to survive on a deserted island? What do you do?

9. Develop a brand new invention

10. Plan a school party

11. Work out a modern school library system that encourages students to read

12. Create and manage a YouTube channel for a self-determined and authentic purpose

13. Design a book with educative physical exercises to keep students moving during the day

14. Help local businesses increase environmental sustainability

15. Solve your parent's problem of being too busy.

These are just project-based learning ideas. You'll have to work them out and include several other learning aspects and materials. Take a look at this example: Island survival. If you scroll down on that website, you'll find a whole collection of project-based learning lessons, completely worked out for you.

Don't know how to really start with project based learning? Here are some tips.

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What is project-based learning? 15 PBL ideas fit for your classroom

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PBL, a term you've probably seen a few times as a teacher. But what does it actually mean? And how do you use it in your classroom? PBL, or project-based learning. That's what this post is about. PBL or project-based learning is a learning method in which students identify a real-world problem and develop its solution.

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Develop a Shared Vocabulary

https://www.edglossary.org/

With your school vision and mission in mind, develop a shared vocabulary with your students, colleagues, parents, and community to facilitate building a shared understanding for high quality teaching and learning.

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Created by the Great Schools Partnership, the GLOSSARY OF EDUCATION REFORM is a comprehensive online resource that describes widely used school-improvement terms, concepts, and strategies for journalists, parents, and community members. | Learn more "

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Definitions of common school-reform terms, concepts, and strategies

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Assess "Worthiness" of Components

The MiniPD Team suggests reviewing unit content effectiveness to avoid year on year repetition of less successful unit design and instruction.

The Planning Protocol Activity and Rubric
- Consider using a planning protocol rubric to discuss the planning of new-to-try lessons, learning activities or strategies, within your unit design.

- For example, the Planning Protocol Rubric, by Daniel Venables, fosters a proactive approach to designing and developing quality units, and focuses on key dimensions:

Align to Standards

Impact on Learning

Student Engagement

Depth of Knowledge Level

Technology Integration

Teacher Friendliness

Rigor and Relevance

Differentiation

Time Benefit Analysis

Connections

Venables says, "This is not intended to be the be-all and end-all of evaluation tools for reviewing lesson components or activities." He explains, "To be sure other dimensions could be added [...] The protocol is intended to be a relatively quick way for teachers and teacher teams to assess the 'worthiness' of a lesson or lesson component they are considering implementing in their classes." (Venables, p.125)

Venables, D. (2018), from Facilitating Teacher Teams and Authentic PLCs: The Human Side of Leading People, Protocols, and Practices. ASCD.

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Design for Learning Transfer

The MiniPD Team invites you consider this resource from Julie Stern et al, from Learning that Transfers, with subject specific concepts for supporting students to transfer their learning to different contexts. Further tools linked in.

J., Stern et al, (2021) Learning That Transfers. Corwin.

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This Choice Board provides students with different opportunities to share their understanding within the concept of Influence.

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Choice Boards Provide a Path for Student Agency

MiniPD Coach and MiniCourse designer, Erica Chiotti writes,

When students have voice, choice and ownership in their learning they can feel more engaged and empowered. When designing a unit, consider opportunities for student agency. This may look like independent, partner or small group investigations that are related to the concept(s) driving the unit. Visible Thinking Strategies can also be very useful in written, drawn and verbal reflections. By providing these open ended explorations and stems, high quality thinking can emerge.

Consider trying new and different types of learning and take some risks! Think about incorporating a variety of engagements to capitalize on students’ interests and strengths (hands-on exploration, scavenger hunts, nature walks, learning from experts, designing/building/creating, multimedia tools, etc). This could also take the form of students utilizing a Choice Board to express their learning to best match their interests, talents and capabilities.

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Designing High Quality Units: Share a story of impact on our Twitter chat

- Share a real story of how you have celebrated diversity this month.

@FariaMiniPD #MiniPDchat

The MiniPD Team

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Share a Unit Overview with Students

The MiniPD Team says, as part of the unit design process write a brief unit overview, then share it with students prior to the start of the unit. This will ignite student curiosity and stimulate thinking prior to beginning instruction.

Make your unit title a question

Incorporate key concepts in the overview wordsmithing

Include a selected essential questions

Share with your students prior to the unit begins

As teachers and leaders, it’s our responsibility to ensure our practice honours the curriculum so that we support young people to develop core knowledge and essential skills in their learning. However, the magic happens when curiosity is sparked, when students have the opportunity to make connections and find patterns in their own learning.

The MiniPD Team
Artwork shared with permission, by Nick Austin at BuzzCreative.

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Differentiate with the Best of Them!

Mini PDCoach and MiniCourse designer, Jarrett Brown, writes,

There are many ways to differentiate, and it can be difficult when educators talk "differentiation" because it can be vague. As Carol Ann Tomlinson notes, there are at least four areas to differentiate: content, process, learning environments, and products. This post will explore differentiating products for high quality units.

When we explore products, it's best to give choice without overwhelming our students. Anywhere from 3-9 choices per assessment allow for options.

Differentiated products give both teachers and students options. Perhaps, a teacher wants a child to develop presentation skills with a PPT. The teacher can tell the student to pick that option for an assessment. But if another student has already developed his/her presentation skills, the teacher can ask him/her to work on writing skills in a report. This gives the teacher the opportunity to help develop different skills.

Additionally, choices can also benefit students. If a student has a choice to continue developing their video-making skills throughout the course as a passion of his/hers, there could be some strong scaffolding and creation throughout the units of study. While it is always good to have diverse assignments, it can also be helpful for the child to build upon previous knowledge.

When given choices for a product, teachers and students can use the choices to their advantage to help scaffold struggling skills or develop stronger knowledge from previous understandings. This can be very powerful when designing units of study to help plan for every child in the classroom.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Example Primary Unit Plan

Erica Chiotti, MiniPD Coach and MiniCourse Designer, says,

"carefully considering the foundational aspects of your unit can lead to high quality, engaging learning and teaching."

Watch the recording of the June live session to listen to Erica talk about high quality unit design.

Connect with Erica here for a 1-1 conversation or read her articles.

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Example Middle School Unit Plan: Designing with AtL/Real-World Skills in Mind

Jarrett Brown, MiniPD Coach, MiniCourse Designer, and Assistant Head of Secondary/MYP Coordinator, invites us to make units authentic and meaningful, by incorporating real-world skills explicitly in unit design.

Watch the recording of the June live session and listen to Jarrett talk about high quality unit design.

Connect with Jarrett here for a 1-1 conversation or read her articles.

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MYP Unit Planner - Individuals and societies Sample

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High School Example Unit Plan (Concept-based approach in Math)

Nuriye Singh, MiniPD Coach, invites us to consider a concept-based rather than a content-based approach in unit design. She invites us to consider, "What is the overarching understanding and concept(s) in this topic? How will the learners show their understanding? What is the evidence of learning?"

Connect with Nuriye here for a 1-1 conversation or read her articles.

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For MB users, checkout the Unit Plan Quick Start Guide for unit planning support.

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Note: All units planned on the ManageBac DP unit template have been migrated over to the new DP unit template structure for teachers to either continue editing and developing, or archive if they are no longer needed.

Adding Units and Resources via Quick Add Menu

Via your dashboard, clicking the top-left + Quick Add icon allows you to directly create a new unit, assessment task, or upload resources into an existing unit without navigating to a class.

Adding Units via the Tasks & Units tab in your class

Under the Classes tab, select the class in question. Next, select the Tasks & Units tab. To add a new unit, click Add Unit on the right. If you wish to edit an already existing unit, click the 'Unit Name'.

Class > Tasks & Units > Add Unit

Create a title for your unit, select the start date, the duration of the unit in weeks, and then click Create Unit and Add Resources. This will create the unit. You can begin adding details on the sections below.

Once you have entered the units basic information, you will see the complete in-line unit template.

Note: While ManageBac provides default templates for units, your school can customize this via Settings. This tutorial uses the basic ManageBac template as a framework.

Quick Navigation Buttons

At-a-Glance: Provides a read-only unit summary view. This represents what a Student or Parent sees when accessing the unit. Upload a cover image to enhance visibility.

Planner: An in-line edit mode allowing you to browse the full unit while editing.

Stream & Resources: Group Tasks, Learning Experiences & Resources in a stream. Add Lesson Plans or identify Learning Support

Assessments: Add Tasks and assessment coverage details

Collaborative Planning

Online Presence: See if your colleagues are on ManageBac and if they are editing a unit section. Your name will appear in Orange, with your colleagues names in Green.

Real-time Editing: S ee edits from colleagues reflected in real-time without having to refresh the planner. Either Save Changes or Discard to undo unwanted edits.

Collaboration: Multiple teachers can plan collaboratively. The section they are editing will appear under the Authors section, with their name also appearing on the section in the planner. An "Edit Lock" feature prevents accidental overwriting, with teachers able to edit different sections at the same time, and the edit section button being disabled if another teacher is editing.

Section Navigational Tips

Unit Outline: A menu streamlining navigation, providing a snapshot of overall progress, and quick links to navigate throughout the planner. Your menu will switch to a Lite Menu view to provide addition screen space when planning.

Ongoing Reflections: Click the speech bubble icon to open the right-hand side Reflection section. @Tag colleagues to bring them in to the conversation and leave reflections throughout the unit.

Share & Star: Click the 3 dots icon in any section of the planner to share a direct link to your colleagues, or star a section to highlight it.

Guidance: moving through the planner will highlight the current section in the unit outline in blue for viewing and orange when editing.

View other Units : Click the unit name to quickly navigate to other units in the class to cross-reference your planning.

Editing a unit is managed under the Planner tab.

On the right-hand side you can generate a PDF planner

View the last time the unit was edited

Add unit authors to collaboratively build the unit.

Note: Any teacher who is a teacher in a class of the same subject and year level as the unit will appear as an option in the Add Author list. Teachers can also add themselves as an author directly.

The planning process for DP Units has been adjusted to reflect the 3 main sections of the Unit Outline.

PLAN

DESIGN & IMPLEMENT

REFLECT

These sections can be accessed in any order and edited as needed. In addition, the tabs for Stream & Resources and Assessment also allow for additional content that is relevant to the unit to be added.

SUMMARY

In the Summary section,you can edit the unit title, unit template (if multiple available) and duration. You can choose to share the unit between grades, save it as a draft, or archive the unit. You can also choose to make the unit an Interdisciplinary Unit, which allows you to share it with other subjects by selecting additional subjects.

Please note that the original unit subject is always set to the subject of the class it was created in.

Please also note that you cannot remove a unit's grade level if you are editing from within a class of that particular grade level. If your unit is shared with multiple grades, go to a class of a different grade level to edit the unit and remove the undesired grade.

Click Save Changes to lock in any changes and move to the next section.

INQUIRY & PURPOSE

The Inquiry & Purpose section now covers a multitude of unit planner tabs from previous DP unit plan iterations in ManageBac. We start the section with text boxes for Transfer Goals and Essential Understandings.

After that are the Inquiry Questions and Missed concepts/misunderstandings.

Because the new Planner is now one continuing document, changes can be made to different sections rather than having to navigate from tab to tab.
CURRICULUM
DP Subject specific information can be found and selected in the Curriculum section of the planner - this is organised via the Aims and Syllabus tab.

The different components to see on the Unit Outline can be enabled or disabled for the selected Unit template in the Settings. This will allow schools to customise their DP Unit Planner layout to their needs. See Customising Unit Planner Templates for further guidance.

Standards

Non-IB standards can be tracked within the unit planner, via the Standards tab:

School administrators may add their own standards and benchmarks into ManageBac (see Adding Standards as an Administrator for further information), which will then be available for teachers to select from within unit plans. To begin, go to Curriculum > Standards in the unit plan template. Click Edit Section to select the available standards for the unit.

If you do not see the standards you want to use for this unit plan, click Configure Standards. This will allow you to select from all existing standards enabled by your administrators on ManageBac.

You can search by programme, subject, and filter by grade level/strand. Click Add to Unit to enable the selected standards and then keep selecting more grade levels/strands, or Add to Unit and Return to go directly back to the previous page.

If you already added the specific subject/grade/strand of standards you wanted to target in your current unit within a previous unit, there is an option at the top to select the standards from other units. Once you enable the standards, you will be able to select them within your unit plan in checkbox form.

If you do not see the standards you want to use within the Configure Standards process, it may mean your school administrators have not yet enabled them as an option. Please contact an administrator, who will need to follow our Enabling Standards process here.

DESIGN & IMPLEMENT

Following the unit Planner further into the next section will show two separate sub-sections:
Assessment and Learning Experiences.

Any information added to the Assessment tab from the top navigation bar of the Unit will automatically be listed in the DESIGN & IMPLEMENT > Assessment section of the Planner and vice versa.

This reduces the need for teachers to add the same Assessment information in different places of the unit plan.

REFLECT:

The REFLECT section of the planner provides an area where teachers can collaboratively reflect on the unit and teaching process prior, during and after the unit was completed. This section is organised by academic year so that teachers can revisit last year's reflections at the beginning of the next/new academic year.

Assessment & Resources

If you are only looking to create tasks and add assessment coverage, quickly reference this under the Assessments tab at the top of the unit plan

The relevant subject specific assessment criteria are available either in the Assessments tab or the Design & Implement > Assessment section of the Planner.

Under the Planner tab, click Generate PDF Planner on the right-hand side

As a form of best practice, it is recommended to download planners as PDFs once a term or academic year, so you have a local copy on file

Planners can also be bulk generated via Curriculum > IB Diploma > Whole School Curriculum > Bulk Generate PDF Planners.

Video not showing in China? Try https://v.qq.com/x/page/q0931qgl0xd.html

Adding MYP Units and Resources via Quick Add Menu

Via your dashboard, clicking the top-left + Quick Add icon allows you to directly create a new unit, assessment task, or upload resources into an existing unit without navigating to a class.

Adding MYP Units via the Tasks & Units tab in your class

Under the Classes tab, select the class in question. Next, select the Tasks & Units tab. To add a new unit, click Add Unit on the right. If you wish to edit an already existing unit, click the 'Unit Name'.

Class > Tasks & Units > Add Unit

Create a title for your unit, select the start date, the duration of the unit in weeks, and then click Create Unit. This will create the unit. You can begin adding details on the sections below.

Once you have entered the units basic information, you will see the complete in-line unit template.

Note: While ManageBac provides default templates for the MYP units, your school can customize this via Settings. This tutorial uses the basic ManageBac template as a framework.

Quick Navigation Buttons

At-a-Glance: Provides a read-only unit summary view. This represents what a Student or Parent sees when accessing the unit. Upload a cover image to enhance visibility.

Planner: An in-line edit mode allowing you to browse the full unit while editing.

Stream & Resources: Group Tasks, Learning Experiences & Resources in a stream. Add Lesson Plans or identify Learning Support

Assessments: Add Tasks and assessment coverage details

Collaborative Planning

Online Presence: See if your colleagues are on ManageBac and if they are editing a unit section. Your name will appear in Orange, with your colleagues names in Green.

Real-time Editing: S ee edits from colleagues reflected in real-time without having to refresh the planner. Either Save Changes or Discard to undo unwanted edits.

Collaboration: Multiple teachers can plan collaboratively. The section they are editing will appear under the Authors section, with their name also appearing on the section in the planner. An "Edit Lock" feature prevents accidental overwriting, with teachers able to edit different sections at the same time, and the edit section button being disabled if another teacher is editing.

Section Navigational Tips

Unit Outline: A menu streamlining navigation, providing a snapshot of overall progress, and quick links to navigate throughout the planner. Your menu will switch to a Lite Menu view to provide addition screen space when planning.

Ongoing Reflections: Click the speech bubble icon to open the right-hand side Reflection section. @Tag colleagues to bring them in to the conversation and leave reflections throughout the unit.

Share & Star: Click the 3 dots icon in any section of the planner to share a direct link to your colleagues, or star a section to highlight it.

Guidance: moving through the planner will highlight the current section in the unit outline in blue for viewing and orange when editing.

View other Units : Click the unit name to quickly navigate to other units in the class to cross-reference your planning.

Editing a unit is managed under the Planner tab.

On the right-hand side you can generate a PDF planner

View the last time the unit was edited

Add unit authors to collaboratively build the unit.

Note: Any teacher who is a teacher in a class of the same subject and year level as the unit will appear as an option in the Add Author list. Teachers can also add themselves as an author directly.

The planning process for MYP Units has been adjusted to reflect the 4 main sections of the Unit Outline.

Summary

INQUIRY: ESTABLISHING THE PURPOSE OF THE UNIT

ACTION: TEACHING AND LEARNING THROUGH INQUIRY

REFLECTION: CONSIDERING THE PLANNING, PROCESS AND IMPACT OF THE INQUIRY

These sections can be accessed in any order and edited as needed. In addition, the tabs for Stream & Resources and Assessment also allow for additional content that is relevant to the unit to be added.

Summary

In the Summary section,you can edit the unit title, unit template (if multiple available) and duration. You can choose to share the unit between grades, save it as a draft, or archive the unit. You can also choose to make the unit an Interdisciplinary Unit, which allows you to share it with other subjects by selecting additional subjects.

Please note that the original unit subject is always set to the subject of the class it was created in.

Please also note that you cannot remove a unit's grade level if you are editing from within a class of that particular grade level. If your unit is shared with multiple grades, go to a class of a different grade level to edit the unit and remove the undesired grade.

Click Save Changes to lock in any changes and move to the next section.

INQUIRY: ESTABLISHING THE PURPOSE OF THE UNIT

The Inquiry: Establishing the Purpose of the Unit section now covers a multitude of unit planner tabs from previous MYP unit plan iterations in ManageBac. We start the section with a list of all Key Concepts and Related Concepts to be selected.

After that are the Conceptual Understandings and Global Contexts, as well as their Explorations. This is then followed by the Inquiry Questions and Statement of Inquiry.

Because the new Planner is now one continuing document, changes can be made to different sections rather than having to navigate from tab to tab.

MYP Subject specific information can be found and selected in the Curriculum section of the planner.

The different components to see on the Unit Outline can be enabled or disabled for the selected Unit template in the Settings. This will allow schools to customise their MYP Unit Planner layout to their needs.

ACTION: TEACHING AND LEARNING THROUGH INQUIRY

Following the unit Planner further into the next section will show two separate sub-sections:
Assessment and Learning Experiences.

Any information added to the Assessment tab from the top navigation bar of the Unit will automatically be listed in the ACTION: TEACHING AND LEARNING THROUGH INQUIRY section of the Planner and vice versa.

This reduces the need for teachers to add the same Assessment information in different places of the unit plan.

Standards and Benchmarks

School administrators may add their own standards and benchmarks into ManageBac, which will then be available for teachers to select from within the unit plan templates. To begin, go to Assessment > Standards and benchmarks in the unit plan template. Click Edit Section to select the available standards for the unit.

If you do not see the standards you want to use for this unit plan, click Configure Standards. This will allow you to select from all existing standards enabled by your administrators on ManageBac.

You can search by subject, and filter by grade level/strand. Click Add to Unit to enable the selected standards and then keep selecting more grade levels/strands, or Add to Unit and Return to go directly back to the previous page.

If you already added the specific subject/grade/strand of standards you wanted to target in your current unit within a previous unit, there is an option at the top to select the standards from other units. Once you enable the standards, you will be able to select them within your unit plan in checkbox form.

If you do not see the standards you want to use within the Configure Standards process, it may mean your school administrators have not yet enabled them as an option. Please contact an administrator, who will need to follow our Enabling Standards process here.

REFLECTION: CONSIDERING THE PLANNING, PROCESS AND IMPACT OF THE INQUIRY

The REFLECTION: CONSIDERING THE PLANNING, PROCESS AND IMPACT OF THE INQUIRY section of the planner provides an area where teachers can collaboratively reflect on the unit and teaching process prior, during and after the unit was completed. This section is organised by academic year so that teachers can revisit last year's reflections at the beginning of the next/new academic year.

Stream View

Organise your tasks and resources into a visual layout in the Stream by dragging and dropping

Items in the Stream are automatically shared for Students & Parents to view.

Resources

Create new resources including:

Assessment Tasks

Website and Video links

Upload or Link Files

Upload Photos

Write a journal Note

Use the Resources list to organise unit resources into Plans. Filter for resources by type and click the arrow button for any resource to add it to the Stream of the unit in the selected Plan (if any created).

Note: There is no limit to the number of resources added to your ManageBac account, however each individual file must be under 50mb.

Importing from Resources Bank

Importing from the Resource Bank allows you add unit stream and lesson experiences from other classes where the unit also appears.

1. Select the Unit where the Stream and Lesson Experiences need to be imported from.

2. Select which class the Lesson Experience is created in.

3. Select which Lesson Experiences to import and which resources in those to import.

4. Proceed to import or click Proceed and import Next if you want to add additional Lesson Experiences to this unit.

This will add these resources to your unit and resources section.

Lesson Experiences

Create Lesson Experiences via Lesson Experience button at the top of the Stream & Resources tab

Enter a experience, description and duration

Resources in the stream can be dragged into a particular Lesson Plan. This allows you to organise the stream across Weeks, Topics or even Learning Support individualised learning.

Assessment & Resources

If you are only looking to create tasks and add assessment coverage, quickly reference this under the Assessments tab at the top of the unit plan

Under the Planner tab, click Generate PDF Planner on the right-hand side

As a form of best practice, it is recommended to download planners as PDFs once a term or academic year, so you have a local copy on file

Planners can also be bulk generated via Dashboard > Curriculum > Middle Years > Curriculum.

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Note: All units planned on the ManageBac PYP Legacy template have been migrated over to the IB PYP default template for teachers to either continue editing and developing, or archived if they are no longer needed.

Adding Units and Resources via Quick Add

Via your dashboard, clicking the top-left + Quick Add icon allows you to directly create a new unit, assessment task, or upload resources into an existing unit without navigating to a class.

Adding and Editing Units via Classes

Via Classes > select your IB PYP Homeroom class > Tasks & Units. Here you can see the current unit, upcoming tasks and a calendar of units shared with the class. On the right navigation panel, click Add New Unit.

Adding a new unit will prompt you to input a Title, select the start month, week and duration of the unit, and an optional unit description.

Select a subject(s) focus, enter your Central Idea, identify the Transdisciplinary Theme and add Lines of Inquiry. Click Create Unit & Add Resources to create the Unit of Inquiry and access the complete unit template.

Note: These fields can also be completed later on. To edit an existing unit, click on the unit and then

Once you have entered the units basic information, you will see the complete in-line unit template.

Note: While ManageBac provides default templates for the IB PYP, your school can customize this via Settings. This tutorial uses the basic ManageBac template as a framework.

Quick Navigation Buttons

At-a-Glance: Provides a read-only unit summary view. This represents what a Student or Parent sees when accessing the unit. Upload a cover image to enhance visibility.

Planner: An in-line edit mode allowing you to browse the full unit while editing. Add additional

Stream & Resources: Group Tasks, Learning Experiences & Resources in a stream. Add Lesson Plans or identify Learning Support

Assessments: Add Tasks and assessment coverage details

Collaborative Planning

Online Presence: See if your colleagues are on ManageBac and if they are editing a unit section. Your name will appear in Orange, with your colleagues names in Green.

Real-time Editing: S ee edits from colleagues reflected in real-time without having to refresh the planner. Either Save Changes or Discard to undo unwanted edits.

Collaboration: Multiple teachers can plan collaboratively similar to Google Docs. The section they are editing will appear under the Authors section, with their name also appearing on the section in the planner. An "Edit Lock" feature prevents accidental overwriting, with teachers able to edit different sections at the same time, and the edit section button being disabled if another teacher is editing.

Section Navigational Tips

Unit Outline: A menu streamlining navigation, providing a snapshot of overall progress, and quick links to navigate throughout the planner. Your menu will switch to a Lite Menu view to provide addition screen space when planning.

Ongoing Reflections: Click the speech bubble icon to open the right-hand side Reflection section. @Tag colleagues to bring them in to the conversation and leave reflections throughout the unit.

Share & Star: Click the 3 dots icon in any section of the planner to share a direct link to your colleagues, or star a section to highlight it.

Guidance: View customized in-school guidance, as well as From Principles into Practice and IB Standards & Practices notes.

View other Units : Click the unit name to quickly navigate to other units in the class to cross-reference your planning.

The Planner

Editing a unit is managed under the Planner tab.

On the right-hand side you can generate a PDF planner

View the last time the unit was edited

Add unit authors to collaboratively build the unit.

Note: Any teacher who is a teacher in a class of the same subject and year level as the unit will appear as an option in the Add Author list. Teachers can also add themselves as an author directly.

Plan - Summary

Share the unit across year levels by ticking the year level check box

Identify your subject(s) focus and share units to classes with these subjects enabled

Update the start month, week, duration and hours of the unit.The unit will fall on your class unit calendar and Whole-School Curriculum accordingly

Enter a unit description which will be shared with members of the class.

Note: Ticking draft unit will hide the unit from your class schedule, as well as hide it from Students & Parents. Read more about drafting & hiding units here.

Plan - Inquiry

Enter your Central Idea in the text box. Each text box provides rich-text formatting options such as bold and italic text, numbered or ordered lists, embedded media or files, and the ability to insert links and tables.

Identify the units Transdisciplinary Theme and select from a list of theme descriptors.

Click Add Line of Inquiry to create a LOI. Edit existing LOI by updating the text in the field, or delete by checking the box and Save Changes.

Note: Units on a Specialist template will exclude the Transdisciplinary theme.

Plan - Learning Goals

Enter Connections to past and future learning, outlining opportunities for students to develop conceptual understandings to support the transfer of learning across, between and beyond subjects.

Add Learning Goals and identify co-constructed Success Criteria between students and teachers.

Select from your schools Scope & Sequence, selected by Subject, Phase or Year Level, organised by Overall Expectations, Conceptual Understandings, and Learning Outcomes that you plan to address.

Use the search box to search for a particular standard.

Note: Submit a standards import request to update your own school-specific curriculum standards.

Plan - Key and Related Concepts

Select your Key Concepts.

Once selected, identify the subject focus and list related concepts to provide a lens for conceptual understandings within that subject for that concept.

Note: Any text box on ManageBac supports any written language. Select the text direction from left-to-right or right-to-left.

Plan - Developing IB Learners

Select your Learner Profile connections and add a description.

Note: Units can be edited at any point in time, thus if you have missed a skill, you can edit and select when needed.

Plan - ATL Skills

Click Add ATL Skills, select an Approaches to Learning category to view full skills list and add a description.

Use the search box to find a particular skill.

Note: For lists, we recommend to use ordered or unordered lists with indentation.

Plan - Action

Address opportunities for Student-initiated action.

Note: If you are typing a lengthy comment entry, click the Full-screen arrows button to expand the edit box.

Design & Implement - Assessment & Resources

Add coverage on Ongoing Assessment.

Create Tasks to assess student work and progress.

Identity Resources that will be used to enhanced and extend learning.

Outline opportunities for Student Self-Assessment and Peer Feedback.

Note: Use the left-hand unit outline to quickly navigating up and down the planner via Quick Links.

Design & Implement - Learning Experiences

Enter coverage notes on Designing engaging Learning Experiences

Address how the unit will Support Student Agency

Note: Learning Experiences can be created directly under the Stream & Resources tab

Reflect - Reflections

Reflections are supported both in-line with each section of the planner, as well as a summary at the end of the planner.

Enter Reflections on Looking forward and back on the unit, as well as Subject Specific Reflections

Note: Reflections are carried over with the unit from year to year, so you can track historical changes, and continue to develop the unit over time. Select the term dropdown to view reflections from prior academic years.

Create new resources including:

Assessment Tasks

Website and Video links

Upload or Link Files

Upload Photos

Write a journal Note

Note: There is no limit to the number of resources added to your ManageBac account, however each individual file must be under 500mb.

Stream View

Organise your tasks and resources into a visual layout in the Stream by dragging and dropping

Items in the Stream are automatically shared for Students & Parents to view

Resources

When adding a resource to a Unit, the Add Resource menu will show options for title, description and to select if you want to add the resource to the Stream directly or not. By default, resources are added to the Resources section.

The Resources section of the Unit allows for filter by resource type via the Filter button. You can also add a resource to the Stream by clicking the arrow button next to each resource. Editing and additional resource options are available via the 3 dot menu for each resource.

Note: All resources listed in the Resources section of a unit can be added as Task resources to individual tasks. If a resource is added to the Stream, it will be unavailable to be added to a task.

Importing from Resources Bank

Importing from the Resource Bank allows you add unit stream and lesson experiences from other classes where the unit also appears.

1. Select the Unit where the Stream and Lesson Experiences need to be imported from.

2. Select which class the Lesson Experience is created in.

3. Select which Lesson Experiences to import and which resources in those to import.

4. Proceed to import or click Proceed and import Next if you want to add additional Lesson Experiences to this unit.

This will add these resources to your unit and resources section.

Lesson Experiences

Create Lesson Plans via Lesson Experience button at the top of the Stream & Resources page.

Enter a lesson experience title, description and duration

Resources in the stream can be dragged into a particular Lesson Plan. This allows you to organise the stream across Weeks, Topics or even Learning Support individualised learning.

See an example of Arranging Lesson Plan Resources below:

Assessment & Resources

If you are only looking to create tasks and add assessment coverage, quickly reference this under the Assessments tab at the top of the unit plan

Note: Task assessment settings can be customized by an admin in your schools Settings

Under the Planner tab, click Generate PDF Planner on the right-hand side

As a form of best practice, it is recommended to download planners as PDFs once a term or academic year, so you have a local copy on file

Planners can also be bulk generated via Dashboard > Curriculum.

Via the Tasks & Units tab in your class

First select a Class and click the Tasks & Units tab. This will take you to the page above. By clicking Add New Unit from the right navigational menu you will be able to create a new unit for your class.

1. Create a . This will create the unit and allow you to add further details in the unit planner.Units will automatically be shared with other classes of the same subject and grade level.Title for your unit, select the start date and length of the unit in weeks. Click

Create Unit and Add Resources Note

:

2. Description - Add descriptive text to your unit plan

3. Inquiry - Establish the purpose of the unit by adding a Central Idea

4. Guiding Questions - Add conceptual, factual or debatable guiding questions to lead students to new insights by reviewing the knowledge gathered through the unit

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Creating & Editing Unit Plans QuickStart Guide

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Note: All units planned on the ManageBac DP unit template have been migrated over to the new DP unit template structure for teachers to either continue editing and developing, or archive if they are no longer needed.

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For Atlas users, checkout the unit planning support resources.

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Your Unit Planner has been designed by your school leadership team. It includes relevant curriculum categories (Content, Skills, etc.), preloaded items, and standards or outcomes to help guide your curriculum work.

Unit Planners can only be edited by Curriculum Developers assigned to the Course. Teams of developers can work on a unit planner at the same time.

Application

Develop Collaboratively

Collaborative teams can develop the same unit, just not in the same mapping category. Once a collaborator clicks into a category to add content, the category is locked until they click into another category or navigate away from the Unit Planner.

Click directly inside any mapping category with a white background to begin typing or to paste text copied from another electronic document.

Click Choose buttons in Assessments and preloaded Standards categories.

Your work is auto-saved every two minutes or while working in the Unit Planner, and a record of this activity is kept under the Actions button at the top of the page.

Target Standards

This is an optional feature in Atlas. If your school is not aligning to a predetermined set(s) of standards or outcomes, you may not see this in your Atlas system.

From My Atlas > My Courses > Unit Planner:

1. Click Choose Standards from the Standards & Benchmarks category. You may see different terminology for this category, depending on your school's language.

To start, Browse Standards in your Atlas system for your subject, grade or level, or by strand. Alas will remember your selection for this course.

If needed, you can Search all standards or a specific content area in your system by keyword.

If needed, you can Filter Standards to show your progress in targeting and assessing standards in your course.

2. Check the boxes next to the benchmarks or outcomes you are targeting in your unit.

If you do not see a particular set of Standards available in your planner, contact us for support.

3. Click Save to complete the process. Your aligned standards will appear in the standards category of your Unit Planner.

Flag Priority Standards

This is an optional feature in Atlas, contact your school's system admin to enable it. Curriculum Developers can flag standards as Priority, Supporting, etc., at the unit level. If your system admins created the flags in your Atlas, you'd notice the flag icons prefixing any standard in your units after clicking the " Choose Standards" button in any unit planner.

From My Atlas > My Courses > Unit Planner:

1. Click Choose Standards from the Standards & Benchmarks category. You may see different terminology for this category.

2. Check the box next to the benchmark/outcome you are targeting in your unit.

3. Once checked, the flag icon(s) is visible to identify the priority of a benchmark/outcome. Click the desired flag.

4. Click Save.

Add Assessments

Depending on your Atlas unit planner that's designed by your school, you will follow one of two methods to create a new assessment in Atlas.

1. Assessment Category is within the Unit Planner Template

From My Atlas > My Courses > pick a course > pick a unit

1. Click Add New Assessment button.

2. Add the assessment name.

3. Select the Assessment Type, if enabled.

4. Select an Assessment Method from your school's approved list.

The list of available assessment methods is customized by your school. If you cannot find an assessment method that meets your needs, contact your System Admin to request that it is added to the list of options.

5. Select any additional methods you use in the Additional Assessment Methods, if applicable.

6. Add description about your assessment in the Description box.

7. In the right section, check the box(s) to align your assessment to the standards you've targeted in the unit planner, if applicable.

You may find that your Assessment also targets cross-curricular standards, such as in the case of technology integration. These standards may not be intended targets in your unit, but may be important to identify. Align to these standards in the Additional Standards tab.

8. Click Save to return to your planner. The targeted standards will be visible in the Assessment category on your planner.

2. Assessment is not included in the unit planner template, but within the Standards Alignment tab

From My Atlas > My Courses > pick a course > pick a unit

1. Click the Standards Alignment tab > Standards Alignment > then click Add New Assessment button.

2. Add the assessment name.

3. Select the Assessment Type, if enabled.

4. Select an Assessment Method from your school's approved list.

The list of available assessment methods is customized by your school. If you cannot find an assessment method that meets your needs, contact your System Admin to request that it is added to the list of options.

5. Select any additional methods you use in the Additional Assessment Methods, if applicable.

6. Add description about your assessment in the Description box.

7. In the right section, c heck the box(s) to align your assessment to the standards you've targeted in the unit planner, if applicable.

You may find that your Assessment also targets cross-curricular standards, such as in the case of technology integration. These standards may not be intended targets in your unit, but may be important to identify. Align to these standards in the Additional Standards tab.

8. Click Save to return to your planner. The targeted standards will be visible in the Assessment category on your planner.

Rich Text Editing Capabilities

Each text box on your Unit Planner has various rich text editing and formatting capabilities you can use to organize your text.

Not all Text Editing features are supported in Edge and IE 11 Browsers. Please use the latest version of Chrome or Firefox to have the best editing experience.

Ground Rules for successful usage of the rich text editor:

When copying and pasting from other text editors, use Ctrl+Shift+V (on Windows), or Command+Shift+V (on Mac), to paste without formatting, then format directly in the rich text editor in Atlas.

Don't copy images directly into the rich text editor; instead, use the image insertion tool within the tool.

Attach Support Materials

Attach curriculum planning materials to categories in your unit planner, and include web links to outside resources.

Attach materials to a Mapping Category

1. Click Add an Attachment for the select category.

2. Select the type of attachment. You and your colleagues can search by keyword the curriculum in your system, as well as content by attachment type.

Use the Lesson Plan to upload detailed classroom lesson plans used in the unit.

Use Website to link to supporting articles, websites, images, videos, web quests accessible online, or Google Drive Folders.

Use Image to upload and display images directly on your map, such as artwork, graphs, mathematical equations, or musical notation.

Use Document to upload almost any file type, including Word, PDF, PowerPoint, and SmartBoard files. Users can View attachments type PDF and MS Word documents with no need to download them locally.

Use Google Drive to link your Google Drive and Team Drive files, such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Form, etc. For more details, click here.

Use OneDrive to link to your files stored in OneDrive. For more details, click here.

3. Locate the file(s) on your computer or network, or if attaching a web link, enter the website URL.

We recommend file size smaller than 100 MB and images lower than 1024 x 768 for optimal uploading. The contents of many files may be searched in the Search tab once they are uploaded to your unit.

4. Click Open in your file browser to attach the file(s).

A COPY of your file is saved to your Unit. To make changes to the contents of the file, open your file from its original location, make your changes, and replace the copy saved to your Unit.

5. Optional: Click the pencil icon (Edit) to include a Description for your link that will display in map views. If a Description is not included, the file name will be displayed.

Attach materials to a specific Assessment

In addition to attaching a link to the Assessment category in your planner, you can also attach links directly to a particular Assessment.

For an Existing Assessment

Click the pencil icon (Edit) to attach a file. Then, follow the above steps 2-4 from attaching materials to a mapping category.

For a New Assessment

Click Add New Assessment and click Add an Attachment from the pop-up window. Then, follow the above steps 2-4 from attaching materials to a mapping category.

View Archived Units from the Unit Planner

You can view the archived copy of a unit, if available, in the Unit Planner by doing the following:

At the top right corner of any unit planner, switch to the VIEW mode. If you can't find the switch, that means you're in the VIEW mode by default.

Look at the bottom left side of the unit planner and click the << Previous Year link.

Additional Tools in Your Planner

Leave a Comment (visible to all users)

When viewing a map, unit, lesson, or saved report, click the speech bubble in the upper-right corner to access the comments panel. The default tab is Comments (visible to all users).

1. Write your comment in the box, size limit is 1000 characters.

2. Click Add an Attachment to add resources (Website Link, File Attachment) to your comment.

3. Click Post to share your comment, Or Discard to cancel it.

4. Comment actions:

Click the Close to replies link to prevent replies to your comment. You can later click the Open for replies if you want to allow replies and threaded conversations.

Click the PENCIL icon to edit your comment.

Click the X icon to delete your comment.

Click X icon at the top right corner of the panel to leave.

Leave a Private Comment

Private Comments are only visible to the comment's author, and the users selected in the recipients list.

When viewing a map, a unit, a lesson, or a saved report, click the speech bubble icon at the top bar to access the comments panel. The default tab is Comments (visible to all users).

1. Click the Private Comments tab.

2. Select who can see your comment by clicking the To: drop-down list. If you leave the list blank, the comment will be recorded as a "Note-to-self".

3. Write your comment in the box, size limit is 1000 characters.

4. Click Add an Attachment to add resources (Website Link, File Attachment) to your comment.

5. Click Post to share your comment, Or Discard to cancel it.

6. Comment actions:

Click the Close to replies link to prevent replies to your comment. You can later click the Open for replies if you want to allow replies and threaded conversations.

Click the PENCIL icon to edit your comment.

Click the X icon to delete your comment.

Click X icon at the top right corner of the panel to leave.

Additional Resources:
Click here to learn more about Comments, and Private Comments.

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Your Unit Planner has been designed by your school leadership team. It includes relevant curriculum categories (Content, Skills, etc.), preloaded items, and standards or outcomes to help guide your curriculum work. Unit Planners can only be edited by Curriculum Developers assigned to the Course.

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