Creating Engaging Units of Study For Your Students – Teacher and Student Resources

29th July, 2009 - Posted by Meggin - No Comments

When you are creating units of study for your classroom, you will want to think about all the resources that you can bring in for your students. It’s smart to have a section in your Unit Resource Notebook (or wherever you keep your unit materials) that is labeled “Teacher/Student Resources.”

This component is the place where you want to have an annotated bibliography of the books, articles, manuals, films, filmstrips, videotapes, CDs, DVDs, software, etc. that will either

(a) provide information for you, the teacher, as you prepare to teach this unit of study, or

(b) provide information for your students as they take part in this unit of study.

In addition to annotating what the particular resource is, be sure to make note of how to access the information. For example, is it something in your personal library? Or, can you obtain it from your school media center? And what’s the ‘call number’ for it? If you have found something that is owned by a colleague, available on the internet, or from any other source, make note of that information. You don’t want to rely on your memory the next time you need it, believe me!

For most units, having at least 20 resources will allow you to vary what you are doing with students not only on a day-to-day basis, but also with each particular students, depending on their learning needs. As mentioned, you can annotate your list or even include it right in the section of your Unit Resource Notebook (i.e., if you have photocopied the article from a professional journal, you do not have to annotate it; this does not go for books–please do not include the actual books!).

As you’re evaluating what you have included, consider these ideas:

  1. Are there at least 20 Teacher/Student Resources?
  2. Is each Teacher/Student Resource annotated so that you can determine what it is about or is the actual resource included (articles, pamphlets, etc.)?
  3. Look back at your Content Outline and the Learning Objectives you have created. Do the Teacher/Student Resources relate to the Content Outline and the Objectives?  It is not necessary to have a 1:1 match, but there should be a general correlation among them. 

 Experienced teachers know that they need to know what they have and then have it readily available when it’s time for planning and teaching.  Having a section in your Unit Resource Notebook with information on your resources supports your instruction and thus, the learning of your students. 

And if you’d like to access multiple free resources to further support your teaching, you’ll find them at both of the following websites, which you are welcome to access:

** http://www.PumpernickelPublishing.com

** http://www.OwningWordsforLiteracy.com

 © 2009 Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., The Ph.D. of Productivity(tm).

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