Unit Plans vs. Lesson Plans: WHAT! They are not the same thing?

Unit Planning

Unit Plan vs. Lesson Plan

Planning is an essential element of effective teaching. Lesson and unit plans are considered to be the foundation of instruction. Each day a student has a learning experience that is not part of a larger context is a day that relates neither to the past nor to the future; making connections is essential to enhancing student knowledge. Research suggests that in order for learning to be optimized the content must be relevant and meaningful to the learner. Therefore effective unit planning is vital to effective instruction and successful learning outcomes.

In short, a unit plan is comprised of multiple lesson plans. Unit plans are created to address the subtopics within the curriculum. Whereas, a lesson plan addresses the topics within a unit and targets specific learning objectives. The unit plan is comprised of multiple lesson plans that span a broad range of topics.

The figure to the left lists the components and the specific purpose of each component to a unit. This image can serve as a resource to support you when developing a unit plan. When developing a lesson plan, consider including the 6 major elements listed below. A good lesson plan results in focused, dynamic learning experiences wherein students are thoroughly engaged. These key elements will help you maximize student time on learning.

Element 1: Content to Be Taught: Identify What You Want Students to Learn

Element 2: Identify Misconceptions Commonly Held about the Core Idea

Element 3: Performance Objectives (clear, explicit statement of behaviors to exhibit)

Element 4: Concept Development (5 E Model)
- Engagement
- Exploration
- Explanation
- Elaboration

Element 5: Evaluation (Assessment)

Element 6: Accommodations (Universal Design for Learning)

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For more information on the 5E model, click the image below:

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Brief example:

Unit = Life Cyles

Lesson = The 4 Stages of a Butterfly Life Cycle.

A unit plan is essentially a road map of the year. It is comprised of carefully designed lessons that can span days or weeks. The unit plan allows teachers to strategically plan how lessons should progress throughout the year and provides students with opportunities to discover relationships between concepts being taught.
The lesson plan is a more specific, standards-based plan. These plans outline the purpose and the activities of what will be done on a specific day or across several days.

I like to think of lesson plans and unit plans in comparison to a textbook. A textbook is divided into a number of chapters. Those chapters would be considered a Unit. Whereas the subtopics within those chapters are equivalent to a potential lesson. Either way, standards should always be used to guide and inform instructional plans.
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No need to reinvent the wheel! Use an arsenal of resources to help guide your lesson planning process!!

- Mosa Mack

- Mystery Science

- New York Science Teacher

Learning Through Inquir(EEEEE)y

A pedagogical approach to teaching science: 

Inquiry-Based Learning using the 5E instruction model. 

The 5E Instructional model promotes active, collaborative inquiry-based learning. The 5E model sequences learning experiences so that students have the opportunity to construct their understanding of a concept through exploration. 

The model leads students through five phases of learning:

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Inquiry allows students to become fully immmersed in real science by encouraging them to ask testable questions, create and carry out investigations, analyze and interpret data, draw warranted conclusions, and construct explanations that promote a deep conceptual understanding of science topics. 

Clarification: Inquiry-based learning is NOT discovery learning. The key distinction between the two approaches is that inquiry-based learning is scaffolded whereas discovery learning is not. During discovery learning, students are not guided through the process. The inquiry process is scaffolded during inquiry-based learning; meaning educators become facilitators. They facilitate the gradual progression from structured/guided inquiry to open inquiry. 

There are four levels of inquiry that are used during inquiry-based instruction. The image below is an informative representation of these levels: 

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Inquiry-based learning is a research-based approach to learning that challenges learners. This approach makes learning meaningful, enhances learning, teaches skills needed for all areas of learning, fosters curiosity in students, deepens student understanding of topics and concepts, allows students to take ownership of their learning and increases engagement.  Below I have linked and a brief simple sample of a 5E lesson plan, check it out!

Simple 5E Lesson Plan: How Do Different Drinks Affect our Teeth?


Constructing new learning is dependent on old learning. Check out this video on How to Use the 5E's in order to create a lesson with higher learner retention.

Assessment FOR Learning (Above and Beyond EC)

"If you can both listen to children and accept their answers not as things to just be judged right or wrong but as pieces of information which may reveal what the child is thinking, you will have taken a giant step toward becoming a master teacher, rather than merely a disseminator of information." - Easley & Zwoyer, 1975

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           With the field of education constantly changing and growing, formative assessments prove to be a powerful tool that can be used to improve student learning. While high stakes testing and summative assessments can be useful, one of the most significant limitations to this form of assessment is how distant it is from understanding student's current level of achievement. Formative assessments can be used to provide educators with real-time information regarding the students' understanding and allow teachers to make immediate instructional decisions based on the information gained from these assessments. In addition to this, formative assessments allow educators to identify struggling students and provide early interventions in order to address issues before they become major learning deficits. Trends in formative assessment and using data to positively impact student learning have become an integral part of teacher practices in the classroom today.

The image above shows examples of each form of assessment. This visual aid showcases the distinct similarities and differences between these two forms of assessments.

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"The benefit of assessments for learning isn’t merely a more clear picture of understanding; Used properly, it can also inform the rest of the learning process, from curriculum mapping (what do we learn when?) to instruction (how will it be learned?) to assessment design (how should future learning ideally be measured?). While the role of testing in instructional design isn’t simple, it really might be. If the goal of any assessment is to provide data to refine planned instruction, then the primary function of any assessment, whether an authentic, challenge-based learning performance or a standardized test, should be to answer the following question for any teacher:

“What now?”

If the data doesn’t provide a clear path forward for both students and teachers, it likely obscures more than it clarifies." - Terry Heick

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Below I have created an infographic that provides useful information, insights, as well as, resources that can be used when using formative assessment.

Reality Behind My Knowledge and Beliefs on Science

For my undergraduate degree, I actually studied biology. So I was excited when I opened the quiz to the first question involving the essential constituents plants require to grow. Flooding back came all the different scientific courses I had taken during my undergraduate studies. I was confident, my initial thoughts being: "I know this stuff!" and "I got this!". However, I was quickly reminded that there are a number of fields and concepts in science other than the life science and biology I grew accustomed to and favored greatly. The quiz definitely served as a great refresher on science and the very many aspects/ concepts embedded within the subject.  Included are topics I seemed to have erased from my memory, quite possibly due to a negative experience with the topic such as physics 😱.  The quiz reminded me of how vast and ever-changing science is! There is so much to science from the tiny microbes invisible to the naked eye to science bigger than imaginable like black holes and space!

Now my performance on the first attempt was not as expected...however, with a quick review I am happy to report that I improved tremendously on the second attempt.

My reaction when I took the second quiz. 

My reaction when I took the first quiz...

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For this semester, I hope to learn better ways to communicate and teach this very complex subject to students. I want to be the most effective teacher and I think complex subjects such as science can be very difficult to articulate in a way that the students can understand. With that in mind, I think hands-on, active, inquiry-based learning is a key component to reaching students. I hope to learn a plethora of hands-on experiences and activities that I can add to my teaching toolbox to use at a later point with my future students!!