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Education 302/303 Unit Plan

Context:
Education 302/303 Unit Plan
Johanna Admiraal
Calvin College
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Education 302/303 Unit Plan
Student Profile

Miss Anderson’s French 2, 1st hour class is composed of quite a diverse set of students.

There is a total of fourteen students: three boys and eleven girls (one of whom chooses gender

neutrality). The students are mostly thirteen and fourteen-year-old 8th graders. The only

exception is one senior student. As for race/ethnicity, the class is mostly white (9 students) with

three Hispanic students and one biracial student. Although none of the students have any special

needs, three of them are ELL students (Anderson, 2018).

Even though the students do not have documented special needs, I hope to keep track of

student differences in both formal and informal ways. I think use of a variety of formative

assessments could be helpful for me in figuring out how students learn best. Additionally, I think

it would be helpful to simply pay attention to which students seem most engaged in which kinds

of activities. Also, talking to students and looking over their work helps. They can tell you

themselves what types of activities they find helpful. I noticed that one boy doodles these

incredible drawings on his work…he is often not engaged in actual class lessons. I hope to

encourage him in his drawing ability and allow him to use it in productive ways in class…even

something as simple as Pictionary could be cool for him!

For the most part, I am not aware of my students’ faith backgrounds, but I do know that

Kent county in which the school is located has a high population of Christian families – at least

nominally, Christians make up about 50% of the population. 45% of the population did not claim

a religion, and the other 5% either did not respond to the survey or held to a religion other than

Christianity (thearda, 2010). I also do not know about each individual student’s socioeconomic

status. I do know, however, that at City Middle and High School 39% of students qualify for free

and reduced lunch – and everyone is given free lunch (edgap, 2017)
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Education 302/303 Unit Plan
Classroom Profile

Miss Anderson’s French classroom is located in a smaller building behind the main

school that also houses a 6th grade environmental school. It is a small classroom with a

chalkboard but no whiteboard, and it can often be crammed. Two long tables face perpendicular

to the board as well as a short table. There is hardly any room to get up and move around.

Thankfully, the French 2 class is relatively small, which makes it much easier to do group

activities that involve some minimal seat shifting, etc. This serves as just a temporary space for

the year as the main school building undergoes some construction.

School

City Middle/High is an IB school that starts in grade seven and goes through high school.

Students must test-in to the school, so it is considered more of a magnet, regional school than a

local school. It is located in Kent County, in the GRPS school district. It is considered to be one

of the best schools in all of Michigan – on the school sign, it reads “Ranked #3 in the State.” The

average SAT score is 1230, and the graduation rate is 100% (edgap, 2017). This year, close to

1000 students attend City, of whom approximately half are White. The rest are Hispanic (21%),

Black (10%), Asian (8%), American Indian/Alaska Native (0.02%), and two or more races (5%).

The chart below is a few years dated, but it shows the general breakdown (nces.org, 2015).

American Indian/Alaska Native: 2

Asian: 59

Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander: 0

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Education 302/303 Unit Plan

Hispanic: 156

Black, non-Hispanic: 78

White, non-Hispanic: 404

Two or More Races: 43

Since City Middle/High is a magnet school, there is not really tracking because everyone

is tracked towards the IB exams. All students must meet the same requirements in junior and

senior year, taking three higher level and three standard classes. City’s status as an IB school also

imposes on it extra curriculum standards besides the ACTFL standards. These are called IB

criteria. Even in the MYP (middle years program...7-10), two IB criteria must be assessed per

quarter. For French, there are 4 criteria: A) Comprehending Spoken and Visual Text B)

Comprehending Written and Visual Text C) Communicating in Response to

Spoken/Written/Visual Text D) Using Language in Spoken and Written Form. Like the ACTFL

standards, these standards are abstract enough to allow for creativity on the part of the teacher.

Some side effects of City’s high ranking and status as an IB school are certain attitudes in

both students and teachers pertaining to learning. For example, students “know they’re smart” (a

quote from my mentor teacher). This means they can sometimes be difficult to teach. They

sometimes assume that they are the best and don’t need instruction. On the flip side, students at

City generally want to learn. For my unit plan, I’m going to try to challenge this atmosphere by

pushing them to think deeply about issues of culture and values instead of just letting them float

through a stereotypical lesson like they usually can.

Local Community
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Education 302/303 Unit Plan
City is located in Kent County, in the Creston neighborhood of Grand Rapids. Creston

received a rating of F for education on areavibes, but City is probably not included in that rating

as it is not really a local school but a magnet school. For most other things, Creston is on par

with the rest of Grand Rapids. Its employment rate is lower than most of Michigan, but it is

higher than several neighborhoods in Grand Rapids. In addition, its crime rate is higher than the

crime rate around Calvin, and the type of crimes tend to be more violent.

Conclusion

This information is useful as I begin to plan my unit. One piece of information that stands

out to me as especially important to consider is the relatively high number (for a 14-person class)

of ELL students – Almost 25% of this class is composed of English Language Learners. One

way I hope to accommodate is by communicating mostly in French during my unit plan. This

way, all the students will be on a more equal playing field. Also directly impacting my lessons is

the size of the classroom. I can’t very well do activities that involve a lot of movement in a

cramped classroom. I’ll have to think of ways to incorporate a little bit of motion, especially

during the block period. Another important factor in my lesson planning will be the additional

curriculum criteria imposed by the IB. As I move forward with my unit project, I plan to use this

information as a check to make sure I meet my students where they are to the best of my

knowledge.
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Education 302/303 Unit Plan

References

About the EdGap Map: Visualizing the Education Gap. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.edgap.org/#5/41.853/-79.277

Anderson, A. (2018, September 26). [Personal interview].

A. (n.d.). Creston, Grand Rapids, MI Livability. Retrieved from

https://www.areavibes.com/grand rapids-mi/creston/livability/
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Education 302/303 Unit Plan
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.crimemapping.com/map/location/49505?id=

Reports. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.thearda.com/rcms2010/r/c/26/rcms2010_26081_county_name_2010.asp

Search for Schools and Colleges. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/

User, S. (2017, December 08). Super User. Retrieved from https://www.grps.org/city

Welcome to the School Index Report. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.mischooldata.org/SchoolIndex/Overview.aspx