Step Three - Focus questions and benchmarks

	STEP THREE - Focus questions and benchmarks 1 meeting

	Have ready three or four copies of the Focus Question Template.
	Have ready one copy of the Unit Chart Page One and *Unit Chart Page Two* for each team member. You will need to print these charts in landscape mode.
Introduction	*First*, keep the four criteria for a good unit in mind:
Process		1. The unit should be an investigation in which students gather, analyze, and present information to answer a question. Changing the topic from "Rivers" to "Should Rivers be Dammed?" made one team’s unit an investigation.
Step One
Step Two
Step Three		2. The unit should be strong in each of the content areas. The topic will be under intense scrutiny regarding this criterion during Step Two.
Step Four
Step Five		3. Electronic technology should be embedded in the unit; all students must have opportunities to use technology at various places in the investigation. The student end product should require the use of technology.
Step Six
Step Seven
Step Eight		4. The unit must have relevance for students; think about local connections.
	*Second, settle on a focus question for the unit. You may already have one by now. If you do not, check these resources if you haven’t already done so: Focus Questions* and *Language for Questions*.

	Here are samples of unit focus questions from some of the pilot teams. These are graphics, and will take some seconds to download

		Ghost town focus questions
		War experiences focus questions
		Should rivers be dammed? focus questions
		Comments from Winter Team
		Comments from River Team
	*Third*, devise one or two focus questions for each content area. Each teacher should have come to the meeting with possibilities to share with the rest of the team. Team members should feel free to tweak each other’s focus questions until everyone is satisfied with the whole set. As each team member settles on his focus questions, he should also identify the two to four content benchmarks to be covered and record these on the Unit Plan chart for his content area. Begin jotting down technology benchmarks you think you will cover. These will not be finalized until the activities are finalized. Each team member should begin to fill in a unit chart page one for her content area




	You may be asking why you should fill in the unit plan charts. "It’s more paper work!" you are thinking; "We’ll remember what we did!" There are two good reasons to go to the trouble of the unit plan charts:
	The unit you are developing is high quality and word about it will get around. Administrators, board members, and other teachers may ask about it, and having a unit plan to share is very convenient. You may decide to present the unit at a conference.


	Teaching teams change from year to year as people move and assignments shift. After the work of planning a unit, you want it to be reproducible no matter what your team looks like next year. As you complete the chart, do it with enough detail so that a new teacher could teach from it.

	*Meanwhile*, be thinking about a student culminating task that will tie together concepts covered in all classes, use technology, and enter the higher reaches of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

	The focus for STEP FOUR is defining this task. Teachers may want to come back to this place and take a look at the STUDENT TASK BRAINSTORMING TOOL.

	At about this step in the process, several of the pilot teams held an extra meeting with LOCAL RESOURCE PEOPLE. Look to see how information from these people gave the teams richer ideas.

	This is the end of Step Three.
	Save four minutes to think about the NEXT MEETING.
	If things are not going well, take time to pause and Reflect .