Unit and Course Planning

Start with course aims

Course Planning is a useful starting point for looking at the shape of a course. Its map brings together aims and objectives, assessment and alignment. It also introduces backward design, starting with the end of a lesson. Use these branches to see how a planned outcome relates to the rest of a plan.

Next, look at Planning lessons and courses. It includes stages in learning, lesson aims and planning. Reading the branches alongside Course Planning gives you another way to organize your thinking about what a lesson aims to achieve.

Explore a didactic unit

Didactic Unit presents a set of elements that includes presentation, reading comprehension, phonics, consolidation and assessment. Its branches provide an example of how activities and assessment can appear in a unit plan.

Other didactic unit maps cover objectives, contents, methodology and assessment criteria. One also includes the roles of the teacher and student, didactic resources, discussions, role-playing and research. Compare these branches with the first map to see the different planning elements each one brings together.

Use notes and questions

The notes on foreign language area planning cover the sequence and timing of contents and objectives, as well as methodology for learning and assessment activities. After exploring the maps, read the notes to follow those planning areas in another format.

There are no quizzes listed on this topic page. If you want to check your understanding with questions, a free account lets you make your own quizzes and save your quiz scores. You can use a map alongside your questions, returning to its branches when you want to review an idea.

Connect the topic to the unit

Unit and Course Planning is a section of Lesson Planning in Education and pedagogy (incl. teaching methods, curriculum, educational psychology). The resources connect course aims and assessment with the practical choices involved in planning lessons and units.

Choose a map and use its branches to outline a plan of your own.