My Courses > Unit Planner

Your Unit Planner has been designed by your school leadership team. It includes relevant curriculum categories (Content, Skills, etc.), preloaded items, and standards or outcomes to help guide your curriculum work.

Unit Planners can only be edited by Curriculum Developers assigned to the Course. Teams of developers can work on a unit planner at the same time, just not in the same unit template category. Once a collaborator clicks into a category to add content, the category is locked until they click into another category or navigate away from the Unit Planner.

Atlas will automatically open a locked category for other users to edit after 5 minutes of no activity, or when the user clicks into another category to edit. 

Your work is auto-saved every two minutes while working in the Unit Planner, and a record of this  activity is kept under the Actions button at the top of the page.

Unit Planner Categories

Atlas has four distinct categories for units:

1. Free Text Box Category: This category enables you to input or paste your curriculum data in a written format.
2. Standards Category: This structured category provides a convenient "Choose Standards" or "Choose Outcomes" button, allowing you to easily target multiple standards and benchmarks, and track your progress across units and lessons within the same course.
3. Assessment Category: In this structured category, you can create assessments by utilizing the "Add New Assessment" button. It enables you to include various components such as Assessment Type (Summative or Formative), Assessment Methods, Description, and the specific Standards being assessed.
4. Checklists Categories: These structured categories enable your school to develop simple or complex checklists. You have the option to create checklists with either a number of items or incorporate drop-down menus and nested checklists.

You can add attachments to all categories types, read more about attaching support materials into categories hereunder. 

1. Free Text Box Categories 

This category enables you to input or paste your curriculum data in a written format. Categories such as Essential Questions, Enduring Understandings, Skills, etc. Each text box has various rich text editing and formatting capabilities you can use to organize your text.

The available formatting options in each free text box category:

1. Text color: Change the color of the text to emphasize or differentiate content.
2. Text background: Highlight text with a background color for emphasis.
3. Bold: Make text bold to highlight key information or titles.
4. Italic: Italicize text to emphasize certain words or phrases.
5. Underline: Add an underline to text for additional emphasis or to denote links.
6. Strikethrough: Draw a line through text to indicate deletion or correction.
7. Insert horizontal line: Add a horizontal line to separate sections of text.
8. Subscript: Position text slightly below the baseline, often used for chemical formulas or mathematical notations.
9. Superscript: Position text slightly above the baseline, often used for exponents or ordinal indicators.
10. Ordered list: Create a numbered list for items that need a specific sequence.
11. Unordered list: Create a bulleted list for items that do not require a specific order.
12. Align left: Align text to the left margin for a standard look.
13. Align center: Center-align text for headings or emphasis.
14. Align right: Align text to the right margin for stylistic purposes.
15. Increase indent: Indent text to the right, often used for quotations or nested lists.
16. Decrease indent: Reduce the indentation of text to the left.
17. Insert table: Add a table to organize data in rows and columns.
18. Special character: Insert special characters or symbols not found on the standard keyboard.
19. Insert link: Add a hyperlink to text for quick access to web pages or documents.
20. Insert image: Embed an image within the text to enhance the content visually.
21. Insert video: Embed a video within the text to provide multimedia content.
22. Text direction: Change the direction of text for languages written from right to left.
23. Reset style: Remove all formatting from selected text to revert to the default style.
24. Insert a math equation - MathType: Add complex mathematical equations using MathType. To learn more about building math equations using this tool, click here. 
25. Insert a chemistry formula - ChemType: Add chemical formulas using ChemType. To learn more about building chemistry formulas using this tool, click here. 

Ground Rules for successful usage of the rich text editor: 

• When copying and pasting from other text editors, use Ctrl+Shift+V (on Windows), or Command+Shift+V (on Mac), to paste without formatting, then format directly in the rich text editor in Atlas.
• Don’t copy images directly into the rich text editor; instead, use the image insertion tool within the tool.
• To undo an action: 
  • Using Keyboard Shortcuts 
    • On a PC
      • Press Ctrl + Z to undo the last action.
    • On a Mac
      • Press Cmd (⌘) + Z to undo the last action.
  • Using the Mouse
    • On a PC:
      • Right-click on the area where you want to undo the action.
      • Select Undo from the context menu that appears.
    • On a Mac:
      • Right-click (or Control-click) on the area where you want to undo the action.
      • Select Undo from the context menu that appears.

2. Standards Categories 

This structured category provides a convenient "Choose Standards" or "Choose Outcomes" button, allowing you to easily target multiple standards and benchmarks, and track your progress across units and lessons within the same course. 

• Click Choose Standards button in any standard category. You may see different terminology for this category, depending on your school’s language. It might be called Standards, Benchmarks, Goals, etc. This category is easily identified by having the "Choose Standards" or "Choose Outcomes" button. 
  1. Click the first drop-down menu in the Browse Standards to select your subject, then the grade or level, then the strand or domain. 
  2. Check off the desired benchmarks to teach in this unit. 
  3. If enabled, flags are added to each benchmark and can be checked off as well to flag your benchmarks. For example, your school might have create a P flag to indicate the Primary Standards, and a I flag for the Interdisciplinary standards. Click here to learn more about creating flags for standards in your Atlas. 
  4. If needed, you can Search all standards or a specific content area in your system by keyword. 
  5. If needed, you can Filter Standards to show your progress in targeting and assessing standards in your course.

While in the unit planner view, you can un-target standards or change the flagging status. 

If you do not see a particular set of standards available in your planner, contact us support@onatlas.com for support.

3. Assessments Categories 

Summative and Formative Assessments are captured in Atlas via a structured assessment category. You may see different terminology for this category, depending on your school’s language. It might be called Summative Assessments, Formative Assessments, Rubrics, etc. This category is easily identified by having the "Add New Assessment" button. 

From My Atlas > My Courses > click on any unit, then click Add New Assessment button:

1. Add the Assessment Name. 
2. Select the Assessment Type, if enabled. 
3. Select an Assessment Method from your school’s approved list. 
4. Select any additional methods you use in the Additional Assessment Methods, if applicable.
5. Add description about your assessment in the Description box.
6. In the right section, check the box(s) to align your assessment to the standards you've targeted in the unit planner. If enabled, you can select the proficiency level. Click here to learn more about Proficiency levels in Atlas. 
7. Optional, you may find that your Assessment also targets cross-curricular standards, such as in the case of technology integration. These standards may not be intended targets in your unit, but may be important to identify. Align to these standards in the Additional Standards tab.
8. Click Save to return to your planner.

The list of available Assessment Methods is customized by your school. If you cannot find an assessment method that meets your needs, contact your System Admin to request that it is added to the list of options.

While in the unit planner view, you can un-target standards in any assessment or change the proficiency level status. 

4. Checklists Categories

Structured categories to capture simple or complex checklists. Simple checklists are identified with "Choose Items" button, while Complex Checklists are identified with "Add New Activity" button. In both checklists, you have a rich text editor box to add you notes and description. 

Contact us support@onatlas.com to build checklists in your Unit Planner Templates. 

More Actions

Additional Resources:

• Lesson Planning Templates: So many options!
• Lesson Planning Template Library

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