MYP Lesson Plan Writing

MYP unit planner

Unit title

Teacher(s)

Subject and grade level

Time frame and duration

Stage 1: Integrate significant concept, area of

interaction and unit question

Area of interaction focus Significant concept(s)

Which area of interaction will be our focus? What are the big ideas? What do we want our
Why have we chosen this? students to retain for years into the future?

3. 4.
Human Ingenuity, Environments, Health
and Social, or Community and Service
(sets the CONTEXT for learning; think
real-world application)

MYP unit question

5.

Assessment
What task(s) will allow students the opportunity to respond to the unit question?
What will constitute acceptable evidence of understanding? How will students show what they have understood?

6.
First, identify the culminating activities which you will use to assess mastery of standard.
Second, plan formative assessments leading up to the culminating task(s).
Third, identify the major content which will need to be pre-assessed.

Which specific MYP objectives will be addressed during this unit?

7.
The MYP Rubrics are derived from the MYP Objectives. There must be a match here.

8.
Which MYP assessment criteria will be used?

9.

Stage 2: Backward planning: from the assessment to

the learning activities through inquiry

Content
What knowledge and/or skills (from the course overview) are going to be used to enable the student to respond to the unit
question?
What (if any) state, provincial, district, or local standards/skills are to be addressed? How can they be unpacked to
develop the significant concept(s) for stage 1?

1.
GPS Standards

Know Understand Do

2. 2. 2.
Teaching at the conceptual Demonstration of Mastery
level
Facts

Universal truths
Approaches to learning
How will this unit contribute to the overall development of subject-specific and general approaches to learning skills?

10.

Learning experiences Teaching strategies

How will we use formative assessment to give students
How will students know what is expected of them? feedback during the unit?
Will they see examples, rubrics, and templates?
What different teaching methodologies will we employ?
How will students acquire the knowledge and practice
the skills required? How will they practice applying How are we differentiating teaching and learning for all? How
these? have we made provision for those learning in a language other
than their mother tongue? How have we considered those with
Do the students have enough prior knowledge? How special educational needs?
will we know?

This box should be a road map of where you

are headed through the unit. 12.
11.

Resources
What resources are available to us?
How will our classroom environment, local environment and/or the community be used to facilitate students’ experiences
during the unit?

13.

Ongoing reflections and evaluation

In keeping an ongoing record, consider the following questions.

There are further stimulus questions at the end of the
“Planning for teaching and learning” section of MYP: From
 principles into practice.
Students and teachers
What did we find compelling? Were our disciplinary knowledge/skills challenged in any way?
What inquiries arose during the learning? What, if any, extension activities arose?
How did we reflect—both on the unit and on our own learning?
Which attributes of the learner profile were encouraged through this unit? What opportunities were there for student-
initiated action?

Possible connections
How successful was the collaboration with other teachers within my subject group and from other subject groups?
What interdisciplinary understandings were or could be forged through collaboration with other subjects?
Assessment
Were students able to demonstrate their learning?
How did the assessment tasks allow students to demonstrate the learning objectives identified for this unit? How did I
make sure students were invited to achieve at all levels of the criteria descriptors?
Are we prepared for the next stage?

Data collection
How did we decide on the data to collect? Was it useful?

14.

Figure 12
MYP unit planner

1. Begin with Stage 2, GPS standards. These will be the same state standards that
you have worked with.

2. Break down what the students should know (the nouns or terms), what they
should do (a description of the verbs), and understand (the conceptual level; look
at the structure of knowledge).

3. Go back to Stage 1. What Area of Interaction focus will you use to teach the
lesson? (Choose from human ingenuity, environments, health and social, or
community and service.)

4. Then write the significant concept(s). Use the rubric noted in the packet to
determine if you really have created one.
5. The MYP Unit Question should be conceptual in nature. You want it to be just one
question, and something that you want the students to grasp well after the lesson
is done. Use the noted rubric to decide if the unit question is appropriate.

6. First, create the assessment. Make sure it’s going to measure the things they
should do. This is not going to be a multiple-choice test, but it can be an essay,
presentation, performance, or project.

Secondly, make sure that the assignments the students are given will help them to
be successful with the assessment. These will be the formative assessments that
are administered throughout the unit and they should gradually build to the final
assessment that will measure how well the students grasped the content for the
whole unit.

Thirdly, what things will you ask about on the pre-assessment? What do you need
to know they know before you get started?

7. What MYP objectives will you look at?

8. Which rubrics are you using to assess the students? You can use one ore more
than one, but make sure the rubrics fit the assignments given to the students.

9. What material and which rubrics will you use?

10. Go back to Stage 2. Use the Approaches to Learning Skill Chart to decide how to
get the students to do what you want them to do (i.e. work in groups, take notes,
problem solving).

11. Your road map- What things are you going to teach as you go throughout the unit
to make sure the students will be successful on the journey to the assessment.
What material and skills do they need to be taught in order to be successful on the
summative assessment?

12. Teaching strategies- You should scaffold (tier) your assignments. All students
have to get to the same place. However, you’ve got three groups of students –high
functioning, average, and those who need extra help- and you’ve got to teach all
of them. If done consistently, this will help you with class discipline because
those who are ahead won’t get bored and those who need remediation will get it.

13. What resources will you use? Include the textbook as well as things such as
outside reading materials, technology tools, and guest speakers if applicable.

14. Make a note of what worked well and what didn’t work well.