Unit Plan

Hi and thank you for reading.

I created a unit plan. I'm posting some of the aspects that I consider the most important of that plan:

1. UNIT CONTEXT     

Subject/Content Area: Chemistry

Course Regular: Chemistry

Grade Level: 9^th, 10th and 11^th grade 

Length of Unit: Two and a half block periods – (1:45 per period) To be teach by mid October

 

3. Unit Rationale: Enduring Understandings & Essential Questions

This unit is about chemical bonds. Atoms linked among them in different ways. The way in which the atoms are bonding will provide the compound with specific properties. We can understand the properties of a specific substance, we can predict them and we can “build” specific materials that can meet our requirements if we understand the chemical bonds between their atoms.

 

Enduring Understandings (EU)

The enduring understanding that I want to leave to my students is the idea that chemistry is involved in every day and in every part of our life. In this particular unit, chemistry explains the bonds between the atoms that form a specific compound. By understanding the bonds and the properties that each kind of bond provides to the compound we can understand and predict some properties of the materials that we see and use. I expect that my students will understand that chemistry is important and as an immediate use in science and technology. Sometimes we can take better decisions based on our knowledge, so I want to promote knowledge.

Essential Questions

What are the different types of chemical bonds?

What is the difference between them?

How can we explain the physical and chemical properties of the compounds that form ionic bonds – crystals?

Based on observation, can we predict what type of bonding structure is present in a given sample?

Can we refer the knowledge of this unit to real life situations?

What habits are you ready to modify after this unit?

Reason for the Instructional Strategies & Student Activities

The activities in this unit are activities that repeat the same concepts in different ways. They try to help all the students to understand the concepts, and some of them are especially targeted for the students with special needs, but they can help the rest of the class.  

6. Unit Calendar: (Chemical Bonds)

Into Activity

The course of Chemistry is a course that it builds on itself; this unit is a logical continuation of last unit, the Periodic Table. By recapitulating concepts as electronic configuration and noble gases electronic configuration, we can be ready to start the unit about ionic bonds

Though

	Day 1	Day 2
Content Standards	2a. Students knows atoms combine to form molecules by sharing electrons to form covalent or metallic bonds or by exchanging electrons to form ionic bonds ELD Standards 1. Standard for Listening and Speaking Cluster 7 Level (EI) Ask and answer questions by using phrases or simple sentences. Level (EA) Respond to messages by asking questions, challenging statements, or offering examples that affirm the message. 2.Standard for Reading Comprehension Cluster 4 ES Level (EI) Read and orally identify a few specific facts in simple expository text, such as consumer and workplace documents and content area text. Level (EA) Read material and analyze how clarity is affected by patterns of organization, repetition of key ideas, syntax, and word choice.	2c. Students know salt crystals, such as NaCl, are repeating patterns of positive and negative ions held together by electronic attraction ELD Standards 1. Standard for Listening and Speaking Cluster 7 Level (EI) Ask and answer questions by using phrases or simple sentences. Level (EA) Respond to messages by asking questions, challenging statements, or offering examples that affirm the message. 2.Standard for Reading Comprehension Cluster 4 ES Level (EI) Read and orally identify a few specific facts in simple expository text, such as consumer and workplace documents and content area text. Level (EA) Read material and analyze how clarity is affected by patterns of organization, repetition of key ideas, syntax, and word choice.
Learning Objectives	1, After the lesson, the students will be able to understand the ionic bond by naming the monoatomic ionic compounds	2. After the lesson, the students will be able to understand crystal arrangement by identifying   some of the properties
Student Activity	Small groups (4 students) 1. Each group will be assigned with three elements of the same family of the periodic table 2. Each group will develop the electronic configuration of the assigned elements. They need to look for a pattern. 3. Each group will explain the electronic configuration of the elements and will figure out a way to fulfill the octet rule. 4. Presentation on the board, using magnetic models: “How ions are formed?” 5. Presentation of the ionic bond where names are introduced (Power point) 6. Reinforcement of naming compounds. 7. Worksheet: ”Practice Drill: Formulas and Names”	1. Review of ionic bonds 2. Presentation of Crystalline arrangement 3. Hand-on activity, model of a crystalline arrangement
Assessment	Self assessment of their research Worksheets : Names and Formulas	Crystal gallery Voting for the best crystal. Prizes!

Beyond. 
 At the end of the Unit the students will have their unit test, where they need to show that the concepts were understood. There is a lot of help for students before the tests like the after school programs, the teacher is available during lunch, or during independent work time.

8. REFLECTION

This lesson is differentiated, it provides different ways of teaching the content in many vary ways: with a power point presentation, with models, with independent work, etc. And we need to remember that the teacher is always there, in the classroom available to help on o one-on-one during the time when the rest of the students are working independently.

Maybe the activities are too tight or the crystal contest can be very difficult for polyatomic ions, so wee need to limit our possibilities to monoatomic ions; that activity will required more critical thinking (which is good). I think that the instruction part of the unit is very easy to understand, but there might be students that haven’t understand the basic knowledge, so that is something that I need to see if there is a need for reinforcement.

The students need to be able to write the formulas: that is a good way to verify if they understood, because writing formulas or naming those formulas implied a lot of concepts.

Designing a unit is a hard task. It involves looking at the whole picture and that is something that can be difficult at this stage for us. There are some activities that we can plan, but we can add some other after planning the unit. Also planning for a whole unit don’t give you a lot of flexibility to modify your instruction. But in general it is important to have a Unit Plan.

Now I know that I can plan for more than tomorrow’s lesson. By planning for the whole unit I will be collecting lots of resources: I can try to make them fit into a lesson if they are useful resources.