Building a Quality

Curriculum

Understanding by Design

English Language Arts

Consider this scenario

• I am working with my social studies counterpart to develop a unit on the following topic: Westward Movement and Pioneer Life.

We have designed the following activities

– Read textbook section: “Life on the Prairie.” Answer the end-of-chapter questions.

– Read and discuss Sarah Plain and Tall. Complete a word-search puzzle of pioneer vocabulary terms from the story.

– Create a pioneer-life memory box with artifacts that reflect what life might be like for a child traveling west or living on the prairie.

We are especially proud of our Pioneer Day activities

• Dress in pioneer clothes and complete the following learning stations:– Churn butter– Play 19th-century game– Send letter home with sealing wax– Play “dress the pioneer” computer game– Make a corn husk doll– Make a quilt square– Punch tin

Assessments

• Quiz on pioneer vocabulary terms from Sarah Plain and Tall

• Answers to end-of-chapter questions on pioneer life

• Show and tell for memory-box contents

• Completion of seven learning stations during Pioneer Day

• Student reflections on the unit

What could be wrong with such an approach?

• Discuss in table groups

• See Attachment 1 (pg. 19)

Goals for today

• Rethink how we write curriculum

• Rethink how we plan units, develop lessons, design activities, and write assessments

What will I understand?

I will understand that . . . • student learning occurs when

students have access to a quality curriculum built from backward design.

I will understand that . . . • teaching and assessing for

understanding enhances learning of content standards.

What will I know?

• New vocabulary for talking about curriculum

• The three stages of backward design

What will I be able to do?

• Use a new curriculum template based on Understanding by Design (UbD) to plan my first unit of study

Where do we begin?

• We begin with the end in mind and work from there.

• In other words . . .

We use backward design

Not “What book will we read?”

Not “What activities will we do?”

Not “What will we discuss?”

But . . . “What should students walk out the door able to understand, regardless of what activities or texts we use?”

“What is evidence of such ability?

What texts, activities, and methods will best enable such a result?

Stage 1:Identify Desired ResultsWhat do I want my students

to understand, know, and be able to do?What questions do I want them to be able to answer

about reading, literature, writing, listening, and speaking?

Stage 1:Identify Desired ResultsWhat do I want my students

to understand, know, and be able to do?What questions do I want them to be able to answer

about reading, literature, writing, listening, and speaking?

Stage 2:Determine Acceptable Evidence(Design Balanced Assessments)

How will I know if my students know it and/or can do it?

Stage 2:Determine Acceptable Evidence(Design Balanced Assessments)

How will I know if my students know it and/or can do it?

Stage 3:Plan Learning Experiences and InstructionWhat learning experiences and instruction will

enable students to achieve the desired results?

Stage 3:Plan Learning Experiences and InstructionWhat learning experiences and instruction will

enable students to achieve the desired results?

Backward DesignThree Stages of UbD

What does this look like in our new curriculum template?

We address the desired results before designing assessments or lessons.

We are going to spend the morning talking about Stage 1

Stage 1Putting the Pieces Together

The Process of Backward Design: Stage 1

GOALS

State Standards: TEKS

SAT/ACT

AP

College Readiness-THEA

NCTE

What relevant goals (Big Ideas) will this unit address?

The next piece

From Goals to Understandings

Enduring Understandings

• What do we want students to understand about reading, literature, writing, listening, and speaking?

• Is what we want them to understand worth knowing?

• Does it have lasting value?• Can it transfer to other

contexts?

Students will understand THAT . . .

EUs: Bad to Best

• Students will understand the Civil War.

• Students will understand the causes of the Civil War.

• Students will understand that the Civil War was fought over states’ rights issues more than over the morality of slavery.

Bad to Best

Order the Enduring Understanding statements from Bad to Best

• Students will know how to speak persuasively._____• Speak persuasively in public._____• Students will understand principles of persuasive

speaking._____• Students will understand that persuasion often involves

an emotional appeal to the particular wishes, needs, hopes, and fears of an audience, regardless of the logic of the argument._____

• Verify ranking with your table group.

Enduring Understandings: Overarching and Topical

• Overarching: More abstract and general; relate to many units of study– Students will understand that word

meanings can change, sometimes dramatically.

• Topical: More specific; related to a single unit.– Students will understand that some

words have multiple meanings that can vary depending on the context of the sentence.

Checking for Understanding 1

• List common characteristics of properly framed Enduring Understandings.

• Check with a partner

Now try this . . .

• Use your list of characteristics as criteria to determine which of the following examples are effectively framed as Enduring Understandings.

– Authors use specific transitional strategies to organize text.

– Why writing style and presentation are determined by audience.

– Comprehension strategies.

– How to identify symbols.

– Conflict drives plot and character development.

– Comprehension is an interactive process.

Thumbs Up – Thumbs Down

The next piece

From Goals to

Understandings

From

Understandings to

Questions

Essential Questions

What provocative questions will foster inquiry, understanding, and transfer of learning? These types of questions . . .

– Often have no simple “right” answer

– Raise other important questions

– Address various levels of Bloom’s

Here’s a tip:

Student Expectations can often be turned into Essential Questions!

Types of Questions

OverarchingLiterature

What makes a great story?

How do effective writers hook and hold their readers?

TOPICALUnit on Mysteries

What is unique about the mystery genre?

How do great mystery writers hook and hold their readers?

Time to Practice

Essential Questions Generate new onesReading & Literature

Is a “good read” always a great book?

What is the relationship between “fiction” and “truth”?

What do good readers do when they don’t understand a text?

Does literature primarily reflect culture or shape it?

How do I read between the lines?

Writing

How is written language different than spoken language?

Were do ideas for writing come from?

How does the audience influence content, style, and form?

Checking for Understanding 2

• From Understandings to Questions

Students will understand that persuasion often involves an emotional appeal to the particular wishes, needs, hopes, and fears of an audience, regardless of how logical and rational the argument.

Your Essential Questions?

Table Share

Design Tool with Prompts

Topics and Big Ideas

What essential questions are raised by this idea or topic? What, specifically, about reading, literature, writing, listening, or speaking do

you want students to come to understand?

Why study ___? So what?

What makes the study of ___universal?

What’s the Big Idea implied in the skill or process of ___?

What larger concept, issue, or problem underlies ___?

What couldn’t we do if we didn’t understand ___?

How is ___ used and applied in the larger world?

What is a real-world insight about___?

What is the value of studying ___?

Understandings:

Questions:

Let’s Practice

Use the template (Attachment 2, pg. 20) to write Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions for studying grammar.

BREAK!(10 minutes)

The next piece

From Goals to

Understandings

From

Understandings to

Questions

From Questions to Knowledge and Skills

Knowledge and Skills

Facts

Concepts

Vocabulary

What key knowledge (vocabulary, facts, concepts) and skills will students acquire?

KNOWLEDGE

(declarative)

Skills

Processes

Procedures

What should students eventually be able to do as a result of such knowledge?

SKILLS

(procedural)

Example

• Enduring Understandings:– Conflict drives plot and character

development.– Conflict crosses time and culture.– Readers engage actively and

strategically with text to understand conflict and its effects.

Example

• Knowledge– Conflicts that

motivate characters and those that serve to drive the plot.

– Literary elements: plot, character, setting, conflict, point of view

– After-reading strategies: summarizing, comparing, contrasting, synthesizing.

• Skills– consider plot,

character, setting, conflict, and point of view when constructing the meaning of a text.

– extend meaning by explaining the implications of the text for the reader or contemporary society.

– use after-reading strategies appropriate to both the text and the purpose for reading.

Let’s Practice

• Knowledge • Skills (What will students be able to do with the knowledge?)

Generate a list of Knowledge and Skills that reflect the Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions you developed for studying grammar.

Revisiting Westward Movement and Pioneer Life

• Compare and contrast Westward Movement and Pioneer Life before backward design and after backward design.

• (see attachment 3 and 4, pgs. 22-23)

Now that we’ve put the Stage 1 pieces together, what have we

learned about backward design?

Instructional Planning

Select standards from among those students need to know and identify desired results

Design an assessment through which students will have an opportunity to demonstrate those things

Decide what learning opportunities students will need to learn those things and plan appropriate instruction to assure that each student has adequate opportunities to learn

Use data from assessment to give feedback, reteach or move to next level

Select a topic from the curriculum

Design instructional activities

Design and give an assessment

Give grade or feedback

Move on to a new topic

Standards-based Practice Traditional Practice

Lunch

11:30 – 12:45

Meet in grade-level teams by campus

• Work through Stage 1 of the UbD template for a unit of study (Attachment 5, pg. 24)

• Use the Identifying Essential Questions and Understandings Design Tool (Attachment 6, pg. 25 ) to get you started

• Sample EUs & EQs can be found at the end of your handout (pgs. 36-44)

Work from 1:00 – 2:00Meet back with whole group at 2:10

Stage 1:Identify Desired ResultsWhat do I want my students

to understand, know, and be able to do?What questions do I want them to be able to answer

about reading, literature, writing, listening, and speaking?

Stage 1:Identify Desired ResultsWhat do I want my students

to understand, know, and be able to do?What questions do I want them to be able to answer

about reading, literature, writing, listening, and speaking?

Stage 2:Determine Acceptable Evidence(Design Balanced Assessments)

How will I know if my students know it and/or can do it?

Stage 2:Determine Acceptable Evidence(Design Balanced Assessments)

How will I know if my students know it and/or can do it?

Backward DesignStage 2

Acceptable Evidence?

Stage 2

Assessment EvidencePerformance Tasks:

•Through what AUTHENTIC performance tasks will students demonstrate the desired understandings?

•By what criteria will performances of understandings be judged? (rubric?)

Other Evidence:

•Through what other evidence (e.g. quizzes, tests, academic prompts, observations, homework, journals) will students demonstrate achievement of the desired results?

•How will students reflect upon and self-assess their learning?

Curricular Priorities and Assessment Methods

worth being familiar with

important to know and do

Big Ideas

Enduring Understandings

Assessment Methods

Traditional Quizzes and tests

• Paper-and pencil

• Selected-response

• Constructed response

Performance tasks and projects

• Complex

• Open-ended

• Authentic

Diverse Evidence

informal observations tests academic performance

checks for and and prompts tasks

understanding dialogues quizzes

Jigsaw

• See Attachment 7 (pg. 26)

• Table groups: number 1-4, read section, report out to the group. Provide a specific classroom example to illustrate the type of evidence being addressed.

Collecting Acceptable and Sufficient Evidence

• Use the design tool (Attachment 8, pg. 27) to help you think through effective assessments.

Stage 1:Identify Desired ResultsWhat do I want my students

to understand, know, and be able to do?What questions do I want them to be able to answer

about reading, literature, writing, listening, and speaking?

Stage 1:Identify Desired ResultsWhat do I want my students

to understand, know, and be able to do?What questions do I want them to be able to answer

about reading, literature, writing, listening, and speaking?

Stage 2:Determine Acceptable Evidence(Design Balanced Assessments)

How will I know if my students know it and/or can do it?

Stage 2:Determine Acceptable Evidence(Design Balanced Assessments)

How will I know if my students know it and/or can do it?

Stage 3:Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

What learning experiences and instruction will enable students to achieve the desired results?

Stage 3:Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

What learning experiences and instruction will enable students to achieve the desired results?

Backward DesignStage 3

Stage 3

What learning experiences and instruction will enable students to achieve the desired results? How will the design

W = Ensure that students understand WHERE the unit is headed and WHY.

H = HOOK students in the beginning and HOLD their attention throughout.

E = EQUIP students with necessary experiences, tools, knowledge, and know-how to meet performance goals.

R = Provide students with numerous opportunities to RETHINK big ideas, REFLECT on progress, and REVISE their work.

E = Build in opportunities for students to EVALUATE progress and self-assess.

T = Be TAILORED to reflect individual talents, interests, styles, and needs.

O – Be ORGANIZED to optimize deep understanding as opposed to superficial coverage.

Putting It Together

• Spend the remainder of the afternoon working in your horizontal teams.

• Goal: Complete Stage 1 and begin working on Stage 2 and Stage 3

See you back here at 3:30

2007-2008 Expectations

• Begin using the UbD template to design your units.

• Post Enduring Understandings and Essential Question on the board every day. (Administrators will be walking through classrooms and using your posted EUs and EQs to frame what they are seeing.)

• Visit our UbD Exchange

What squares with my

thinking?

What’s still

rolling around in

my mind? What do

I need to change?

Final Reflection