Final Products in Thematic Units usually involved authentic
assessments with multi-step problems
Lower achieving Spec.Ed students are involved in group
work, appropriately involving them, but not holding each low student accountable
for every task (a typical strategy in non-thematic planning -which obviously
sets them up for poor grades)
GT students have opportunities to do independent research,
indepth research, higher level thinking because they,too, are not tied
to spending all their time turning in the same assignments as everyone
else
Assessments are built in all during the unit, not
just with a final test: journal keeping, observations, rubrics that students
help design, mini quizzes, using final products to generate the class test
