When I begin my planning process I use my backwards design template, and create “I can” statements in student friendly language as a starting point. Then I finish creating my rough draft with all my outcomes, cross curricular connections, activity ideas and assessment ideas. The key concept of assessment is the use of triangulation of evidence and communication with the students. From there I decide how I can use this to find or create of activities allow students to be creative, where the students have choice of assignment or choice with how they want to work individually or with other classmates. Next I like to introduce the unit to the students and have them involved during the planning process. I start off by telling the students what our next unit is and then let them brainstorm to themselves, or we do a “Think Pair Share” to come up with “I can” statements, and activity/assignment ideas that then later will be assessed by myself and can also be self-assessed by the student. Once as a class we have finished planning together I finalize my unit plan with the student’s ideas and print off the “I can” statements for the students as a visual. I strongly believe this helps hold the students accountable for their learning and makes learning more effective and engaging because their work is being displayed. They know the expectation because we created the plan together!