Understanding by Design

1. Understanding by Design Mame Hogan, Mary Dillon, Karen Holgersen (Hogi), and Andrea Daunarummo Curriculum Design and Engineering: ELMP7776 Dr. Barbara Strobert Spring 2008

2. Backward design may be thought of as purposeful task analysis: Given a task to be accomplished, how do we get there? Or one might call it planned coaching: What kinds of lessons and practices are needed to master key performances? - Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Understanding by Design

3. UBD “big idea:”Begin with the end in mind Differs from traditional approaches to designing curriculum. Instead of planning activities or tasks first, you begin with how and what will be assessed.

4. Key Elements Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

5. 3 Stages of “Backward” Design • Stage 1: IDENTIFY DESIREDRESULTS.(What are the big ideas?) • Stage 2: DETERMINE ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE. (How do you know that students have mastered the objectives and goals? What’s the evidence?) • Stage 3: PLAN LEARNING EXPERIENCES AND INSTRUCTION. (How will we get there?)

6. 3 Stages of “Backward” Design

7. 3 Stages of “Backward” Design • Stage 1: IDENTIFY DESIRED RESULTS. • (What are the big ideas?) • Stage 2: DETERMINE ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE. (How do you know that students have mastered the objectives and goals? What’s the evidence?) • Stage 3: PLAN LEARNING EXPERIENCES AND INSTRUCTION. (How will we get there?)

8. Worth Being Familiar With Important to Know and Do Enduring Understanding Three-ring Audit Process What concepts should be students be familiar with What important knowledge and skills must students have for mastery Anchors the unit; Why is this topic worth studying Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

9. Stage 1: Identify the desired results • Enduring Understandings: What specific insights about big ideas do we want students to leave with? • What essential questions will frame the teaching and learning, pointing toward key issues and ideas, and suggest meaningful and provocative inquiry into content? • What should students know and be able to do? • What content standards are addressed explicitly by the unit?

10. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONSWhat questions… • are arguable – and important to argue about? • are at the heart of a subject? • recur – and should recur – in professional work, adult life, as well as in classroom inquiry? • raise more questions – provoking and sustaining engaged inquiry? • often raise important conceptual or philosophical issues? • can provide organizing purpose for meaningful and connected learning?

11. Example linking EU AND EQ Enduring Understandings:How people deal with other people affects their future.Some form of conflict will be present in all lives at some point.Conflict does not just affect humans.Essential Question:What role did conflict play in development of the Constitution of the United States?

12. Example with Standards • Social Studies • 1. The student examines and understands major ideas, eras, themes, developments, turning points, chronology, and cause-effect relationships in United States, world, and Washington state history 1.1 Understand and analyze historical time and chronology 1.2 Understand events, trends, individuals, and movements shaping United States, world, and Washington State history 1.3 Examine the influence of culture on United States, world, and Washington State history

13. Sample Essential Questions • How has the U.S. put its own people in internment camps? • Under what circumstances should civil rights be compromised? • How do you explain prejudice? • What is discrimination? • How do you know when something is true? • What should regular people do to be protected from discrimination? • What kind of people aren’t accepted at school?

14. Sample essential questions… • What is the government’s proper role? • To what extent is geography destiny? • How different is a scientific theory from a plausible belief? • How does a “good read” differ from a “great book”?

15. Sample Enduring Understandings • The effects of relocation during World War II still impact the future generations of Japanese-Americans. • Prejudice directed the actions of many powerful people after Pearl Harbor. • Hysteria causes people to be suspicious of those around them. • Things are not always as they appear.

16. Stage 1: Implications for teachers • Distinguish between KNOWLEDGE vs. UNDERSTANDING. • Organize content around key concepts • Show how the big ideas offer a purpose and rationale for the student… the meaningful connections to the real world. • Realize the need to “unpack” content standards to make these connections. • Understandings summarize the desired insights that we want students to realize.

17. Knowledge vs. Understanding • An UNDERSTANDINGis an unobvious and important inference, needing “uncoverage” in the unit; KNOWLEDGE is a set of established facts. • UNDERSTANDINGS make sense of facts, skills, and ideas; they tell us what our knowledge means; they “connect” the dots. • Any UNDERSTANDINGSare inherently fallible “theories”; KNOWLEDGEconsists of the accepted “facts” upon which a “theory” is based, and the “facts” which a “theory” yields.

18. 3 Stages of “Backward” Design • Stage 1: IDENTIFY DESIREDRESULTS.(What are the big ideas?) • Stage 2: DETERMINE ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE. • (How do you know that students have mastered the objectives and goals? What’s the evidence?) • Stage 3: PLAN LEARNING EXPERIENCES AND INSTRUCTION (How will we get there?)

19. Worth Being Familiar With Important to Know and Do Enduring Understanding Three-ring Audit Process Assessments Traditional quizzes or tests Constructed or selected responses Authentic performance tasks and projects Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

20. Examples of Assessment Types

21. Multiple types of assessment, over time • Authentic tasks and projects • Academic exam questions, prompts, and problems • Quizzes and test items • Informal checks for understanding • Student self-assessments

22. Constructing a Performance Task • Goal • Role • Audience • Situation • Product • Standards

23. Sample Performance Task • Goal: Teach about the experiences of Japanese-Americans during WW II. • Role: reporter • Audience: college history majors • Situation: report your findings using the audio documentary and other sources • Product: on-line magazine • Standards: use the documentary, report on real-life experiences, utilize the writing process

24. STAGE 2: DETERMINE ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE • What are the key, complex performancetasks indicative of understanding? • What other evidence will be collected to build the case for understanding, knowledge, and skill? • What rubrics will be used to assess complex performance?

25. Assessments should be credible and helpful. IMPLICATIONS: The assessments should … • be grounded in real-world applications, supplemented as needed by more traditional school evidence; • provide useful feedback to the learner, be transparent, and minimize secrecy; • be valid, reliable – aligned with the desired results of Stage 1.

26. Reliability in Assessments: Snapshot vs. Photo Album • Sound assessment (particularly of State Standards) requires multiple evidence over time – a photo album vs. a single snapshot.

27. Think “Scrapbook” versus “Snapshot” Adapted from Understanding by Design Academy, Seattle, WA, July 2001 presented by Jay McTighe, ASCD.

28. 3 Stages of “Backward” Design • Stage 1: IDENTIFY DESIRED RESULTS. (What are the big ideas?) • Stage 2: DETERMINE ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE. (How do you know that students have mastered the objectives and goals? What’s the evidence?) • Stage 3: PLAN LEARNING EXPERIENCES AND INSTRUCTION (How will we get there?)

29. Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction with a Focus on ENGAGING AND EFFECTIVE Learning “designed in.” What learning experiences and instruction will promote the desired understanding, knowledge and skill of Stage 1?

30. You really understand something new when you can: • Explain, connect, systematize, predict it • Show its meaning, importance • Apply and adapt it to novel situations • See it as one plausible perspective among others, question its assumptions • See it as its author/speaker saw it • Avoid and point out common misconceptions, biases, or simplistic views

31. Six Facets of Understanding Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

32. Examples of Activities:

33. W.H.E.R.E.T.O. Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

34. References: Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Websites • http://www. ubdexchange.org • www.dreamsbeginhere.org/teachers/unit0/Understanding%20By%20Design%20training.ppt#257,2 • https://www.whitworth.edu/Library/Archives/CurrentProjects/Coast&Camp/Resources/UBD%20for%20Margo.ppt#256,1,Understanding%20by%20Design%20%20%20and%20%20From%20Coast%20and%20Camp%20to%20the%20Inland%20Empire • http://education.lssu.edu/resources/UNDERSTANDING%20BY%20DESIGN%20SOE.ppt