Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Tacky The Penguin: "What's The Problem?" [1st Grade], Audrey Tan

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This unit is designed as a mid-year unit for 1st grade language arts. Students will have had some exposure to story elements and will have written a few stories independently. The unit is designed around the Tacky the Penguin books written by Helen Lester. In this unit, students will explore problems and solutions in stories. Students will understand how conflict and resolution engage and entertain readers. The students will listen, compare, and analyze the problems and solutions in three different books. They will realize the power of choice that an author possesses when developing a story. Throughout the unit students …

Viva La Mexico [1st Grade], Beth Fitts

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Traditions are time-honored practices that are passed down from one generation to the next. Where you live influences your traditions. People, places, institutions and countries can be independent. Mexico in now independent. Native American and Spanish legacies contribute to Mexico's vibrant culture.

Personal And Group Identity [9th Grade], Alice Rasmussen

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This unit is designed to purposefully set the tone of the classroom at the beginning of the year. As the year begins, I often get sidetracked with the business of starting a school year and the important process of orienting with the classroom, the teacher, and each other gets pushed aside. This unit is designed with the flexibility needed to allow for the business and logistics of the beginning of the year. It is also designed to allow for schedule changes. A student who enters the classroom after the first day will not be lost or behind. The unit is …

Rational Numbers [7th Grade], Courtney Spickelmier

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This 6-7 week unit is designed to provide students with a deep understanding of rational numbers and what they represent: a part of a whole. The unit encompasses many aspects of working with rational numbers including converting between different forms of rational numbers, comparing and ordering rational numbers, understanding the relationship between improper and mixed number fractions, performing operations with rational numbers, finding percentages, and applying such skills to real world situations. Throughout this unit, students are given the opportunity to discover relationships between numbers, make connections to the real world and other mathematical topics, and reinforce skills through large …

Seedfolks: Individual And Community [7th Grade], Vanessa Sanchez

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Students will focus on the impact an individual can have on a community. The unit will then move on to a study of individuals who have affected their communities and the affect a community has on the behavior and understanding of an individual. Students will also read and discuss the novel Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman as a connection to the focus of the unit. Students will use their knowledge of community and individual influence to make a difference within their own community and reflect on the experience.

Exploring Media [6th Grade], Kathleen Fenske

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

In this unit, students will explore media and will focus on how media has different forms based on its purposes, how it can persuade viewers or readers using a variety of elements and tools, and how it reflects a society's values. Students will begin the unit by delving into it with the following questions: What is media? Why do we use different forms of media? Newspapers? Magazine? Internet? Television? Radio? How do effective advertisements hook the consumers? How do we "read" media? Should we believe everything we see and hear? Does media reflect a society or does it shape how …

Think Inside The Box: Using Tables To Understand Number Patterns [4th Grade], Kristen Lesher, Carrie Susong

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This two-week unit introduces students to more sophisticated number patterns and teaches students how to describe the relationship between two sets of data in a table. In the unit, students will identify patterns in everyday situations, record those patterns in the form of a table, and begin to use arithmetic expressions as well as other strategies to describe relationships between sets of data in a table. The performance task will ask students to create tables comparing age relationships. Students will describe the relationship between sets of data in each table using both written and verbal communication.

Bits And Pieces -- Working With Fractions [6th-8th Grade], Kathleen Kilday

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

In this unit, students will be introduced to fractions. Students will have practice identifying commonly used fractions using physical models, pictures, numbers, and word problems. Using these skills, students will recognize equivalent fractions and be able to sort fractions from largest to smallest and vice versa. Students will also be introduced to adding and subtracting these commonly used fractions. To demonstrate their knowledge of fractions, students will be asked to complete a performance assessment. The students will be given a recipe and 2 situations. The students will use the given information to amend the recipe for the appropriate number of …

What's The Matter...Do Things Keep Changing? [10th-12th Grade], Dustin Demoin

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This unit attempts to provide students with a deeper understanding of the properties of matter and physical and chemical properties/changes. This unit could be used at the middle school or IPC level with the omission of the discussion of the kinetic molecular theory. You will also need access to a CRC manual for the project. You could just work with photocopies of the book for the triple points and critical points.

Our Learning Community [9th-12th Grade], Carol Arnold

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

In a school community, the greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction. Each person must have a role and responsibility in order for the community to be successful. We are all part of several learning communities (Cooperative Learning groups, clsssroom, school, friends and family. Students need to function with autonomy: to function independently without constant adult control or direct supervision. Autonomy in a school setting means governing oneself with an awareness of the needs of the community.

Reflexive Writing And Literature [7th Grade], Kara Dougherty

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

The goal of this unit is for students to write their own reflexive piece of writing--a memoir. While students have had previous exposure to this in the past, their focus should be more on narrowing down their topic to the important facts and use vivid descriptions and sensory details to create imagery in their writing. We will read published examples of reflexive writing from both essay collections and the literature book, Elements of Literature: First Course published by Holt in order to analyse and understand how other writers make their literature interesting to the reader. We will also explore strategies …

Africa [9th Grade], Kate Empson

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Students will focus on colonialism in Africa. The focus will be on natural resources and the geographic location of Africa and how these two factors led to European colonization of Africa. The unit will then move on to explain how the colonization and exploitation of Africa led to the cycle of poverty in which Africa is currently embedded. Students will use their knowledge of Africa to participate in a simulation. Students will be assigned a specific country in Africa to research. Students will also research the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and determine how these goals have affected Africa.

Writing Free Verse Poetry [3rd Grade], Annie Houston Winter

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This 3 week unit is designed to help students discover that poetry is meaningful and relevant to their lives. This unit will focus on using good word choice to create powerful images in their writing. Students will also gain the understanding that poetry is meant to be read aloud as they prepare for a class performance. Students will discover that they are poets as they write in their poetry notebooks and prepare a piece of poetry for publication in a class anthology.

Breaking Bread: Finding Peace In The Middle East [9th Grade], Jessica Waltman

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

The goal of this unit is to introduce students to the Middle East region of the world. Through the themes of the resources of oil and water students will gain a deeper understanding of the conflicts that have plagued this region of the world. Students will focus on the essential questions "What creates allies and enemies?", "Why is there conflict?", and "Are humans the heroes or villains of the earth?" in order to better understand the perspectives towards and of this part of the world. The activities and daily lessons of this unit are built to aid students in their …

Supply And Demand [12th Grade], Matthew Shane Fitts

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Interaction of Supply and Demand--in a free-market economy, price is a function of supply and demand. In most cases, competitive markets send resources to the uses in which they have the highest value. Elasticity is the measure of the responsiveness to changes in prices.

Media Forms In Use [7th Grade], Salena Gonzales

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Advanced Contemporary Literacy is a new course at NEISD where each grade level's curriculum is designed around a different focus for the year to meet the needs of students who require or desire a challenge and change of pace from the traditional reading class. In seventh grade, the focus is Media Literacy, the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms-from print to video to the Internet. Media Literacy is essential to today's adolescents because, according the the Center for Media Literacy, it "builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well …

If You Aren't Part Of The Solution, You're Part Of The Precipitate! [10th-12th Grade], Dustin Demoin

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This unit attempts to provide students with a deeper understanding of the properties of solutions, the process of dissolving, and the role of solvent. Students will explore both the concepts and the applications of basic solution theory. Students will investigate the role of a solvent, including its properties necessary to dissolve the solute. They will also see the effects of changing the colligative properties and how the concentration of a solution changes those properties in different ways.

Gases, Liquids, And Solids [9th-12th Grade], Dustin Demoin

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

The kinetic energy (energy of motion) of the particles that make up a substance determines the state of the material. During phase changes, energy increases, but the temperature does not increase, until all of the material has changed phase. Energy and stresses cause changes in physical properties of all materials--solids, liquids, and gases.

Koinonia, Connie Horton, Mark Davis, Eric Lowdermilk, Justin Heth, Caleb Farmer, Sharon Virkler, Philip D. Byers, David M. Johnstone, Jeff Rioux, Joshua Canada, Nicole Braddock Bromley, Kim Stave

Koinonia

Best Practices Features
Students of Concern Committee: Coordinating Care, Connie Horton and Mark Davis

Want to Change Student Culture on Your Campus? Do the CORE!, Eric Lowdermilk

Spotlight Features
You Only Get 1 Up, Justin Heth and Caleb Farmer

The Season, Sharon Virkler

Book Reviews
The Future of Christian Learning: An Evangelical and Catholic Dialogue (by Mark Noll and James Turner), reviewed by Philip D. Byers

Restoring Rebecca: A Story of Traumatic Stress, Caregiving and the Unmasking of a Superhero (by Christopher Marchand), reviewed by David M. Johnstone

A Review of Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling (by Andy Crouch), …

Evaluating Professional Preparation In Professional Practice, Marcia Fetters, Cathe Springsteen

Assessment Grants

No abstract provided.

An Assessment Of The Evaluation Process For Teacher Education Students At Western Michigan University, Lynn Nations-Johnson

Assessment Grants

No abstract provided.

Transforming Middle School Science Education Through Action Science, William Robertson

Selected Works Temporary Series

Dr. Skateboard’s Action Science is a curriculum supplement for middle school students that is designed to address content and process objectives in physical science for both the National Science Standards and Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). The video instruction and twenty classroom activities provide the teacher with a series of instructional tools and content information that can be used to explore and explain the concepts found in the areas of forces, motion, Newton’s Laws of Motion, and simple machines. Action Science can be defined as the use of familiar objects, circumstances and situations within the lives of students in …

National Curriculum And National Professional Standards: Potentially A Powerful Partnership, Lawrence C. Ingvarson

Teaching standards and teacher evaluation

The author discusses the potential impact on Australian education of the creation of the interim National Curriculum Board (NCB) and subsequently the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and of the National Partnership on Quality Teaching (NPQT). The author argues that their roles should be seen as distinct, but complementary and mutually reinforcing – which has important implications for the new national curriculum, the success of which will depend fundamentally on the willingness and capacity of teachers to meet related standards.

Reflections (2009 Issue), College Of Health Professions

College of Health Professions Newsletters & Magazines

This issue highlights the achievements of the College of Education and Health Professions.

Preparing Student Leaders To Make A Difference: Adult Guides Are Key, Julia Link Roberts, Tracy Inman

Center for Gifted Studies Faculty/Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Guyland: A Tough Place To Be, Charles G. Eberly

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

This is a book review of Michael Kimmel's 2008 book, Guyland: The perilous world where boys become men. The review was written with a focus on the challenges young men face during the college years, and the impact that a "charasmatic adult" such as a fraternity advisor can have on their lives.

Morphosis Leadership Being Visionaries In A Changing World, Stefanos Gialamas, Peggy Pelonis

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Living in a rapidly evolving society where change occurs continuously and on multiple levels, has created a need, more than ever before, for leadership that reflects this new reality. The changes in demographics, the forming of multicultural families, the diversity on an economic, educational, social and ethnic level, as well as the further rise of multinational corporations are all changes that are challenging traditional values and principles. Thus the quest for Authentic Leadership is rising, and it is an idea which implies that leadership is very personal. Why Authentic leadership? One might ask. Because, “there is evidence of the desire …

E Is For Elephant, J Is For Jackass: The Role Of Politics In Education, Michael Miles

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

K-12 institutions find themselves under the realm of No Child Left Behind. A central question is, “What does this really mean in terms of the educational world?” State legislatures are more and more influencing the organization and operation of institutions of higher education. It seems that the roles assumed by individuals in education and the roles assumed by individuals in politics have taken drastic, if not cataclysmic changes. No Child Left Behind and state-mandated funding formulas (to mention only a few) are not the only times in which educators and institutions have found themselves inundated by politics. The days of …

The Impact Of Leadership On Community College Faculty Job Satisfaction, Jaime Kleim, Becky Takeda-Tinker

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Technical colleges are experiencing high levels of annual turnover and retirement among faculty, staff, and administrators. Job satisfaction among employees in these institutions is therefore of vital importance to leadership that must increasingly work to understand and address factors of job satisfaction and turnover.

Table Of Contents - Spring 2009, Fort Hays State University College Of Education

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Academic Leadership Journal Spring 2009 table of contents