Student Background and Readiness      

       In this unit I will ask my students to think in a way which is foreign to most of them( my students are very inquisitive and curious). This will be a large asset because the students will not be afraid to ask questions or vocalize areas of confusion. An interesting compound to this is that my students have recently started vocally and adamantly questioning why we are learning what we are learning. I believe this to be an asset in two ways. For the aspect of the students readiness, I know that when the students are questioning the reasoning this means that they are caring and thinking about the content they are learning and taking ownership of their learning. The second aspect which comes from this questioning is that it keeps me as an attentive active teacher accountable for creating tactile lessons with everyday application. This will always require an extra thought, but an extra thought which is so worth it for the students “buy in” and retention.

As for knowledge the students are coming into the unit with a basic knowledge of lines and angles. This will, of course, be beneficial because rather than teaching them the names (which I am sure feel arbitrary to them) and the definitions we will only be delving into the definitions of lines and angles. From this place we will be expanding past vocabulary and into application. This application will require equations, basic operations, and the breaking down of word problems. These are all strategies which my students are fluent in and will only require a slight tweak in angle application.

Student Needs

In order to be successful in this unit academically students will need to be comfortable with thinking in a new way. This will take practice and is something which I plan to be very up front with. When starting the unit I will tell the students that they are entering a new world of thinking. We will talk about the fact that there are more ways to go about these problems and everyone’s first step will often not be the same. I will make sure they know that they have the tools and basic vocabulary to be successful.

In order for the students to be socially successful they must learn to be okay with being wrong. For some students this will be a breeze, while for other this will feel dreadful. Working through these feelings will require a classroom rhetoric around what is a good student and what action they take to become the best student they can be. In addition to this students will be working on how to articulate their thinking and how to kindly communicate  when they think someone else is wrong. These discussions might be bumpy at first but, with practice the students will improve and the conversations will become more rich.

At this time my students all have high EPLs, while this does mean that I do not need to breakdown the vocabulary as much as I would for a lower level it still means that I need to provide the students with some type of vocabulary support. A huge support for the students will be a well placed word wall with all of the needed vocabulary, lots of “I say, you say”, and when we are moving as a whole group (which can often be a lot of language relatively quickly) I will be reading the questions out loud together and the students will have access to the content in their laps or on their IPads. I will also often repeat what a classmate said to give the students more than one opportunity to process the information and to make sure they are hearing it in a clear voice. I will do my best to repeat this information in the same wording in order to allow for student voice to still be valued.

Very basically, in order for the students to be successful in this unit students will need to be attentive during class discussions, make the use on independent practice time, gain a knowledge of the vocabulary, persevere when problem solving, and remember to try multiple strategies when one does not work. All of these things will be modeled and many will take practice. The students will be encouraged that confusion is okay and is part of the process.