Sometimes, teacher candidates ask for sample unit or lesson plans they might adapt. It is important to remember whenever seeking samples online, that what you find may not fit with your own context. As we plan, we plan for learners and not simply for subjects or topics or even curriculum. Keep in mind the particular needs of your own teaching context including community, individual learners needs, resources at your disposal. As you begin to wrap your brain around planning, you may find the video embedded in a blog post, KDU a starting point in planning, on the Scarfe Digital Sandbox helpful. It shares how teachers might use the KDU model as a planning support/structure.
That said, seeing what others have done can be a valuable starting point at times! While we haven’t developed an ‘exhaustive’ or even ‘comprehensive’ set and, instead, have focused on templates and planning resources, we have provided a few samples at the bottom of this post. Your course methods instructors may be a good source of additional examples.
It is important to note that these are not ‘exemplars’ but simply examples that might inform your own ability to design learning for your own students and teaching context.
- An excellent starting point are some samples ‘vetted’ by the Ministry of Ed Instructional Examples on the BC curriculum website.
- Open educational resource repositories
- Teach BC,
- Provincial Specialists Associations
- cross-district groups such as the Coast Metro ADST working group of which I’m a part.
One example, Humans and Wolves is not only a cross-curricular unit plan example for grade 3/4, but is also a visual ‘peek’ into the planning process of one teacher planning an inquiry based interdisciplinary unit. I love how the teacher uses ‘speech bubbles’ to illustrate what they are thinking as they plan!
This little video was actually created by a former UBC TC now working in Langley. While not a ‘unit plan example’, this Sketchnote shares her thought processes around planning a Unit:
A few examples from the Scarfe Sandbox
- How to plan for Interdisciplinary learning. Includes some Secondary unit planning approaches and lesson examples
- Intertwining Art – interdisciplinary learning has some examples of how to link curriculum for secondary and elementary.
- Inquiry based teaching and learning – includes a few sample units created by TCs (primary & intermediate elementary examples)