Unit plans, lesson plans and IEPs (Individualized Educational Prescriptions) share the concept of targets, that is goals and objectives. Major goals are generalized statements about a a large group of objectives. To better understand how these will reached, supporting objectives are always provided later that provide more detail in the development for your unit plan which will assigned in the next chapter. 

Classroom teachers draw their major goals from state curriculum guidelines and think in terms of goals for an entire class of learners while specialists generally work across grade levels. Specialists such as speech thereapists, special education teachers, librarians, and others draw their major goals from their professional training and the guidelines established by their professional organizations. Specialists plan for individuals. But even though specialists plan for individuals and sometimes very small groups, their vision must include the effort to mainstream students where ever possible. The knowledge that mainstreaming is always a consideration means that specialists must be in close communication with classroom focused teachers about the state level goals and objectives and consider how specialist's work moves their students in this direction.

A link to the state's curriculum goals is already within your unit plan. Go to your own web site and take the link in your unit plan which leads to the NC Standard Course of Study. Find the goals for your grade level or grade levels. If you will be responsible for just one grade level, choose your goals from that grade level and the subject or subjects that will be integrated into your unit plan. If you integrate more than one content area, for example social studies and English, then have at least one major goal for each content area.

Classroom Teacher Certification Requirements

Specialist Certification Requirements

Graduate students in the Instructional Technology Specialist program (077 certification) should choose 4 goals. But pick your goals in content-computer literacy pairs, one pair for primary grades (K-3) and one pair for intermediate (4th-6th grade) or middle level (7th-9th grade). That is, for the primary level, choose one computer literacy goal for the primary level grade that will be integrated into a content area goal for the same primary level grade. Do the same thing for intermediate or middle level. Do not be concerned that you have some uncertainty at this point over whether these will be your final goals. Expect some change in these items over the weeks of the semester.

Web Page Unit Plan Published