Hit the Bull’s Eye

1. Hit the Bull’s Eye Creating Focused Units of Instruction Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006 Laurie L. Sherrell Lead Teacher Gifted Education Shelby County Schools Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

2. Teachers strive to help each student develop his or her maximum capacity Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

3. In effective classrooms, teachers consistently attend to at least four elements; • Whom they teach(students) • Where they teach (learning environment) • What they teach (content) • How they teach (instruction) If teachers lose sight of any one of the elements and cease investing effort in it, the whole fabric of their work is damaged and the quality of learning impaired. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

4. Understanding by Design focuses on what we teach and what assessment evidence we need to collect. Its primary goal is delineating and guiding application of sound principles of curriculum design. It also emphasizes how we teach, particularly ways of teaching for student understanding. Certainly the model addresses the need to teach so the students succeed. But the model speaks most fully about “what” and “how.” In other words, Understanding by Design is predominantly (although not solely) a curriculum design model. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

5. Differentiated Instruction focuses on whom we teach, where we teach, and how we teach. Its primary goal is ensuring that teachers focus on processes and procedures that ensure effective learning for varied individuals. Defensible models of differentiation will necessarily address the imperative of differentiating quality curriculum. Nonetheless, differentiation is predominantly (although not solely) an instructional design model. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

6. Axiom 1 – The primary goal of quality curriculum design is to develop and deepen student understanding. • All students benefit from and are entitled to curriculum that develops and deepen their understanding • Given variance in student ability, experience, opportunity, language, interest, and adult support, they will grow at different rates and require varied support systems to develop and deepen their understanding. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

7. Axiom 2 – Evidence of student understanding is revealed when students apply (transfer) knowledge in authentic contexts. • Such authentic applications will reveal bring degrees of proficiency and sophistication in students’ knowledge, understanding, and skill. • The most effective teachers use the evidence of variance in student proficiency to provide opportunities and support to ensure that each student continues to develop and deepen knowledge, understanding, and skill from his or her current point of proficiency, interests, and learning preferences. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

8. Axiom 3 – Effective curriculum development following the principles of backward design helps avoid the twin problems of textbook coverage and activity-oriented teaching in which no clear priorities and purposes are apparent. • All learners benefit from and should receive instruction that reflects clarity about purposes and priorities of content. • Struggling learners require focus on the truly essential knowledge, understanding, and skill of a unit to ensure that their efforts are most efficient and potent in moving them forward in reliable ways. • Advanced learners need challenge predicated on what is essential in a discipline so that their time is accorded value and their strengths are developed in ways that move them consistently toward expertise in the disciplines. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

9. Axion 4 – Regular reviews of curriculum and assessment designs, based on design standards, provide quality control and inform needed adjustments. Regular reviews of “results” (i.e., student achievement) should be followed by needed adjustments to curriculum and instruction. • Results of reviews will inevitably show variation among students in essential knowledge, understanding, and skills. • Results-based adjustments to curriculum and instruction should be targeted to the individual as well as to the class as a whole. • Results-based adjustments will require flexible use of time, teacher attention, materials, student groupings, and other classroom elements to ensure continued development and deepening of student’ understanding. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

10. Axiom 5 – Teachers provide opportunities for students to explore, interpret, apply, shift perspectives, empathize, and self-assess. These six facets provide conceptual lenses through which student understanding is assessed. • All students should be guided and supported in thinking in complex ways. • It is not the case that struggling learners must master the basics before they can engage in thinking. Rather, evidence clearly suggests that for most students, mastery and understanding come through, not after, meaningful interaction with ideas. • Nonetheless, students will differ in the level of sophistication of their thinking and understanding at a given time. • Teachers should be prepared to provide opportunity and support to continually develop student’s understandings and capacities as thinkers. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

11. Axiom 6 – Teachers, students, and districts benefit by “working smarter” and using technology and other vehicles to collaboratively design, share, and critique units of study. • Students also benefit when teachers share understandings about students’ learning needs, classroom routines. And instructional approaches to ensure that each student develops knowledge, understanding, and skills as fully as possible. • A routine part of collaboration in academically diverse classrooms should occur between teachers and specialists who have expert knowledge about student needs and instructional approaches most likely to respond effectively to those needs. • Technology should be used to address varied learner needs and to assist the teacher in keeping track of student growth toward important curricular goals. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

12. Excellent teaching is of immense importance. So is coherent, meaning-rich curriculum. But in the end, education is about learning. • Learning happens within students, not to them. • Learning is a process of making meaning that happens one student at a time. • Even as we begin consideration of the kind of curriculum most likely to support students in developing enduring understandings and powerful skills, we have to acknowledge that however impressive our curriculum design, it will have to be implemented in diverse ways according to diverse timetables and in response to diverse learner needs – or else it will not result in the learning for which we cast our plans. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

13. Thus, always in our minds as we design curriculum must be these questions: • Whom am I preparing to teach? • How can I bring knowledge of my students to bear on the way in which I design curriculum? • How can I help these particular students find themselves and their world in what I am about to teach? • Then as we design and implement the curriculum, we need to continue asking: • How might I teach in ways that best reveal the power of this design to these individuals? • How might I learn more about these particular students as I watch them interact with the content and the ways in which I set about to teach it? • In what ways might I ensure that each learner has full access to the power of this design in accordance with his or her particular needs? Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

14. Therefore, curriculum design becomes process through which we plan to communicate to real human beings our belief in the power of knowledge and the potential of the individual to develop power though knowledge. • OUR GOAL then….. To craft curriculum that empowers learners!!! Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

15. What Really Matters in Learning?~Content~ • What knowledge is truly essential and enduring? • What’s worth understanding? What powerful ideas should all student encounter? • Can differentiation and standards coexist? How can we address required content standards while remaining responsive to individual students? Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

16. Big Ideas • Learning results should be considered in terms of understanding the “big ideas” and core processes within the content standards. • These ideas are framed around provocative “essential questions” to focus teaching and learning. • The more specific facts, concepts, and skills (which are typically assessed on standardized tests) are then taught in the context of exploring and applying the larger ideas and processes. • When the curriculum, instruction, and assessment focus on such “big ideas” and essential questions, they signal to students and parents that the underlying goal of all school efforts is to improve student learning of important content, not merely to traverse a textbook or practice for standardized tests. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

17. Planning Backwardsfor more clearly defined goals, more appropriate assessments, and more purposeful teaching. • Stage 1. Identify desired results. • What should students know understand, and be able to do? • What content is worthy of understanding? • What “enduring” understandings are desired? • What essential questions will be explored? • Stage 2. Determine acceptable evidence. • How will we know whether students have achieved the desired results? • What will we accept as evidence of student understanding and proficiency? • Stage 3. Plan learning experiences and instruction. • What enabling knowledge and skills will students need to perform effectively and achieve desired results? • What activities, sequence, and resources are best suited to accomplish our goals? Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

18. Big Ideas & “Unpacking” the Standards • How do we identify the “big ideas” that we want students to understand? • Plan with a partner or team whenever possible. In this case, 2 or 3 heads are almost always better. • Interrogating the content using questions • Why exactly are we teaching ____? • What do we want students to understand and be able to do five years from now? • If this unit is a story, what’s the moral? • What couldn’t people do if they didn’t understand _____? • Unpacking the nouns and verbs in the standards • Nouns point to the “big ideas” and companion questions • Verbs are suggestive of the assessments Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

19. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

20. Essential Questions A question is essential when it: 1. causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content; 2. provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions; 3. requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers; 4. stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons; 5. sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences; 6. naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

21. Teachers have to be careful not to conflate two ideas: “essential to me in my role as a teacher” and “essential to anyone as a thinking person and inquiring student for making meaning of facts in this subject.” Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

22. With clearly identified results and appropriate evidence of understanding in mind, we now think through the most appropriate instructional activities. The goal is to make our teaching engaging and effective for learners, while always keeping the end in mind. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

23. Think like Assessors • When we consider the big ideas we want student to “understand,” we need to concurrently consider the evidence that will show that students truly understand them. In this regard, Wiggins and McTighe (1998) propose that understanding is best revealed through various facets – when learners can: explain, interpret, apply, shift perspective, display empathy, and reflectively self-assess. We need to match our assessment measures with our goals. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

24. Six Facets as Instructional Tools • Originally conceived as a set of indicators of understanding, the facets have proven to be useful in generating ideas for “hooking” students around a topic, engaging them in higher-order thinking, causing them to consider other points of view, and prompting self-assessment and reflection. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

25. Performance Verbs Based on the Six Facets of Understanding Consider the following performance verbs when planning possible ways in which students may demonstrate their understanding explain interpret apply demonstrate analogies (create) adapt derive critique build describe document create design evaluate de-bug exhibit illustrate decide express judge design induce make meaning of exhibit instruct make sense of invent justify metaphors (provide) perform model read between the lines produce predict represent propose prove tell a story of solve show translate test synthesize use teach perspective empathy self-knowledge analyze assume role of be aware of argue believe realize compare be like recognize contrast be open to reflect criticize consider self-assess infer imagine relate role-play Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006

26. Tomlinson, C.A. and McTighe, J., Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, ASCD, Alexandria, VA., 2006