MYP unit planner
Unit title
Flexibility and Adaptability
Teacher(s)
Kathryn Redling
Subject and grade level
Symphonic Band – Levels 3
Time frame and duration
1st Quarter
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?
Why have we chosen this?
What are the big ideas? What do we want our
students to retain for years into the future?
Environments
The key to success is often the ability to
adapt.
This lesson teaches students how to adapt
to various roles and responsibilities. It will
also teach them to work effectively in a
climate of ambiguity and changing priorities.
Students will learn that having skills of flexibility and
adaptability may be the answer to effectively
interact with people of different cultures. Similarly,
students will understand how they must be able to
adapt when it comes to performing different styles
of music, working with another director or playing a
different part.
MYP unit question
What are the skills needed for success in today’s world?
Assessment
What task(s) will allow students the opportunity to respond to the unit question?
Criteria A –
Criteria B – Demonstration of being flexible through playing a piece of music
Criteria C – Plus Delta about classes changes to a piece of music
Criteria D – Open discussion about how flexible each person was.
What will constitute acceptable evidence of understanding? How will students show what they have understood?
By the end of the unit, students will be more fluent on how to be flexible and adapt to change in a variety or artistic situations.
This will be displayed through full band performance, group performance and individual.
Which specific MYP objectives will be addressed during this unit?
Criteria A, B, C, D
What other local assessments will be used?
Group Performance
Group Discussion
Individual Performance and participation
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?
 2.01 Play at least one instrument with appropriate posture, playing position and technique
 5.03 I dentify symbols and traditional terms referring to expressive musical qualities including dynamics and tempo.
 5.01 Read whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenths and dotted note and rest durations in 2/4. 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, 3/8, 2/2 and
mixed meters.
 5.02 Read melodic notation in the treble and bass clefs.
International Connections:
Students will be able to work more effectively in other classes as well as in the community. Students will journal and discuss the
importance of being flexible when visiting or communicating with other cultures.
Approaches to learning
How will this unit contribute to the overall development of subject-specific and general approaches to learning skills?
Through this unit, students will show development in the skill of organization by learning how to adapt to various roles and
responsibilities in the band. Students will practice the skill of transfer by learning to be more fluent on how to be flexible and
adapt to change in a variety of artistic situations.
Learning experiences
Teaching strategies
How will students know what is expected of them?
Will they see examples, rubrics, templates?
How will we use formative assessment to give students
feedback during the unit? Classmates & Director will provide
feedback to performer in a Socratic seminar-type method.
Students will be given directions and receive a small
excerpt of music that they will need to prepare for the
assignment.
What different teaching methodologies will we employ? Class
Discussions, Peer Evaluations, Brainstorming
How will students acquire the knowledge and
practice the skills required? How will they practice
applying these? After performing their excerpt for the
class, the students will implement changes to improve
his/her artistic product.
Do the students have enough prior knowledge? How
will we know? Yes, the excerpt will be at a medium
level, therefore students should be able to prepare the
material in a few days.
How are we differentiating teaching and learning for all? How
have we made provision for those learning in a language other
than their mother tongue? How have we considered those
with special educational needs? Students will be graded on their
active participation. Open class discussions and peer evaluations
will help tailor to the individual performer and be constructive about
what they need to improve and how to do so. Before and after
school tutoring is also available.
How will the teacher know that international or intercultural
components of this unit impacted student learning? Students
will be able to explain the importance of adaptability in other
cultures and how it can improve intercultural communication.
Resources
What resources are available to us?
Instruments, musical excerpts, playlist.com, Pandora.com
How will our classroom environment, local environment and/or the community be used to facilitate students’
experiences during the unit? Please help with this question.
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 throughout 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?
Figure 12
MYP unit planner updated 2.4.10