Understanding by DesignUsing Backwards Design Principles to Create Standards-Based Units

Welcome! We’re glad you’re here…

Today’s Objectives

Learn and apply Understanding by Design (UbD) elements and principles

Draw connections between UbD elements and Rigorous Curriculum Design (RCD)

Reflect upon potential expectations for you as an Instructional Coach

Lunch Break is anticipated at 11:00-12:00

Text Rendering Knowing Your Learning Target

Connie M. Moss, Susan M. Brookhart and Beverly A. Long (2011). Educational Leadership. ASCD: 68(6).

Big Ideas:

Know:(Vocab)

Do:

Alpha Boxes

A B C

Mix – Freeze – Pair – Share

Prepare to be Blended

Sync Thinking with Rigorous Curriculum Design Map

Big Ideas:

Know:(Vocab)

Do:

Mix – Freeze – Pair – Share

Where do some of your Big Ideas fit on the RCD map?

Mix – Freeze – Pair – Share

From your perspective where is your building on the START process right now?

Quick Infomercial

April 18 – Elementary Math/Literacy Priorities

April 27 – Middle School Priorities

May 24/25 – Elem Standards Alignment

May 31-June 2 – MS Math/Lit Mapping Inst.

TEN Week Monday Standards Part II

August 31 – High School Course Alignment

Mix – Freeze – Pair – Share

Given where we are headed, what are some of the implications for you as a coach? In your role as leader?

Parking Lot

Lingering Questions

Thoughts & Ideas

Break

Return from Break

Setting the Purpose

Frontloading what you need to know and be able to do

Developing a strong understanding of the intentional focus on Design

Building your confidence with the varied literature connected to Standards-Based work

Deconstructing a Model

Co-Facilitator GroupsPlease move to your pre-

assigned groups

Deconstructing a Model Review Sample Spanish UbD Unit

What do you notice about the structure?

How do the Standards compare to the Understandings and the Essential Questions?

How do the students “will know” and “be able to do” add depth to understanding the Desired Results?

In what ways does the Learning Plan scaffold student understanding?

Deconstructing a Model

Co-Facilitator Shares a level specific exampleWhat similarities do you notice?What differences do you see?

Deconstructing a Model

Whole Group ShareWhat are you noticing?What are the Big Ideas?What are the implications for

you as a coach?

Parking Lot

Lingering Questions

Thoughts & Ideas

Lunch

Return from Lunch

The 3 Stages of Design

1. Identify desired results

2. Determine acceptable evidence

3. Plan Learning Experiences

Stage 1 – Identify Desired Results

KEY: Focus on Big Ideas 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, suggest meaningful and provocative inquiry into content?

What knowledge and skills need to be acquired to understand the Big Ideas?

Stage 1: Big Ideas

Stage 1: Establishing Priorities around Big Ideas

Nice to Know

Foundational Knowledge and skill

Big Ideas worth exploring and understanding in depth

Understandings and Essential Questions involve Big Ideas

Is it a Big Idea? Does it: Have lasting value/transfer to other inquiries?

Serve as a key concept for making important facts, skills, and actions more connected and useful?

Summarize key findings/expert insights in a subject or discipline?

Require “uncoverage” (since it is an abstract and/or often misunderstood idea?)

Big Ideas are typically revealed via…

Key concepts

Focusing themes

On-going debates/issues

Insightful perspectives

Illuminating paradox/problem

Organizing theory

Overarching principle

Underlying assumption

Provocative questions

Some Big Ideas by Type Concepts: migration, function, equity, text

Themes: “Good triumph over evil”

Debates: “Nature vs. Nurture”

Perspective: “youth” as wise or immature

Paradox: freedom involves responsibility

Theory: you are what you eat

Principle: free markets are self-regulating

Assumption: History is written by the “winner”

Some questions for identifying Big Ideas

Does it have many layers and nuances, not obvious to the naïve or inexperienced?

Do you have to dig deep to really understand its meanings and implications even if you have a surface grasp of it?

Is it prone to misunderstanding as well as disagreement?

Are you likely to change your mind about its meaning an importance over a lifetime?

Does it yield optimal depth and breadth of insight into the subject?

Does it reflect the core ideas as judged by experts?

Big Idea Work Time Regroup with Co-Facilitator by Level

Using Social Studies Placemats 5th Grade Topic: the Colombian Exchange 8th Grade Topic: the Civil War 11th Grade Topic: the Great Depression

Using Poster-size UbD Templates Established Goals (Standards) Big Ideas

Alpha Chart Check

Break

Back from Break

Stage 1: Big Ideas to Understandings

An understanding is a “moral of the story” about the big ideas:

State understandings as full-sentence generalizations about the desired learning

Ask yourself: What specific insights will students take away about the Big Idea?

Understandings Great artists often break with conventions to better express what they

see and feel

Price is a function of supply and demand

Friendships can be deepened or undone by hard times

History is the story told by winners

F≠ms (weight is not mass)

Math models simplify physical relations and even sometimes distort relationships to deepen our understanding of them

The storyteller rarely tells the meaning of the story

Understandings

Avoid truisms, definitions, and vague generalizations

What genuine, unobvious, and important insights do you want students to leave with about the subject – it’s big ideas and key knowledge and skills?

What goes up, must come down.

War is hell.

Mutual Respect Goes Both Ways

Scope of Understandings

Overarching Course (Program) Understanding Artists constantly break rules to help us see and feel

anew.

Topical (Unit) Understanding The Impressionists broke the rules of the Academy to

make us see the real play of light on objects and people.

Hip hop music rip song melodies to make the words more rhythmic and memorable.

Misconception Alert

“Objectives” “Evidence Outcomes” “Standards” are rarely stated as Understandings

Typical learning objectives and goals are written to covey the specific insights we expect students to know and comprehend

The following are NOT Understandings Students will understand the Civil War and its causes Students will understand ratios and proportions Students will understand and read a variety of materials

Skills to Understandings

Skill – SwimmingStudents will understand that:

The most effective and efficient stroke mechanics involve pulling and pushing the maximum amount of water directly backward

A flat (vs. cupped) palm offers the maximum surface area.

Design Tips - Understandings Most units will contain a mixture of topical and

conceptual understandings

Sometimes the understandings is that there is no one understanding

Declarative knowledge concerns facts, statements that are true/unproblematic/sensible on the face of it, but understandings are not really meaningful until played with and understood

Check for Understanding on Understandings

Buzz with a neighbor…

Articulate the meaning you have constructed relative to the idea of Understandings in this framework

Essential Questions Are arguable – and important to argue about?

Are at the heart of the 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 purpose for learning?

Sample Essential Questions Is the market “rational”?

Does a good read differ from a Great Book?

To what extent is geography destiny?

How important is the past?

Is a scientific theory more than a plausible opinion?

What is the government’s proper role?

Scope of Essential Questions

Overarching (Program) In nature, do only the strong survive?

Why leave home?

Topical (Unit) How strong are insects?

Why did the easterners leave their homes for the West?

Provoking vs. Guiding A provoking question looks for opening up

thinking, varied and divergent answers – “uncoverage” of important issues The question is more important than any

answer

A guiding question focuses inquiry and may coverage on an unobvious understanding A guiding question ≠ a leading question: a

leading question points to an unarguable fact

Types of Essential QuestionsTechnical

How precise must the math be here?

What constitutes “appropriate supporting evidence”?

What strategy is best when you are winning a game early?

Philosophical Is an author or artist a

privileged interpreter of his/her own work?

Is it fair to let the market dictate the costs of all vital goods and services?

What shall be our ultimate goal: efficiency or excellence?

Design Tips Most units will contain a mixture of topical and

overarching questions

Most units will contain a mixture of provoking and guiding questions

Don’t try to edit questions while developing them. Work on maximal provocative value and kid-friendly language after you clarify the question from the teacher’s perspective

Student questions belong in Stage 3 (and perhaps Stage 2) after you have clarified the point of the unit.

Understandings & Essential Learning Design Time

Use Poster-sized TemplatesDevelop Unit UnderstandingsDevelop Unit Essential

Questions

Know and Be Able to Do

Specific Knowledge Including vocabulary

Specific Skills

These are often found in the Grade Level Expectations and Evidence Outcomes of the new Colorado Standards

Continue working with Groups –

Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence

Judicial Analogy

What “preponderance of evidence” would show that students have achieved the desired understanding, knowledge and skill?

Backwards DesignA mantra:

“Think like an assessor, not an activity designer.”

The goal is valid and reliable evidence for Stage 1: What do the standards and desired results imply for evidence?

Validity is Key to “Thinking like an Assessor”

Validity involves asking:

Can we infer from the evidence provided by the assessment to the standard(s)? Is this the right kind of evidence for making inferences needed?

How far can we generalize from the (inherently implied sample of evidence?)

Key Validity Question

1. Could the performance be accomplished (or the test be passed) without in-depth understanding?

2. Could specific performance be poor, but the student still understand the ideas in question?

The goal is to answer NO to both.

Building Confidence with the “Understanding” Literature

UbD’s Six Facets of Understanding

Bloom’s Taxonomy (Old and New)

Depth of Knowledge (DOK)

NOT Paul and Elder this is NOT Critical Thinking; Paul and Elder

literatures supports the scaffolding/teaching the critical thinking skills

Depth of Knowledge

• Use DOK Sheet to highlight/underline knowledge and skills in your unit

Stage 3 – Learning Activities

WHERETO W - Where are we headed?

H - How will the student be Hooked?

E – How will students Explore key ideas?

R – How will students Rethink, Rehearse, Refine and Revise?

E – How will students Evaluate their own work?

T - How will the work be Tailored to individual needs, interests, styles?

O - How will the work be Organized for maximal engagement and effectiveness?

Summary of Good Design

Expectations and Opportunities Clear goals, models given up front

On-going feedback provided with opportunities to use it

A genuine challenge, a problem frames work

Real-world requirements

Trial and error, reflection and adjustment expected

Summary of Good Design

Instruction Teacher as facilitator/coach

Active/experiential learning

Problem-based, important questions

Small group and individual work

Student choice, personalization

Attention to student differences in design

Variety in work, methods

Summary of Good Design

Assessment Genuine, meaningful, performance goal; real

audience

On-going assessment, timely feedback

Self-assessment expected

No secrets or mystery to performance goal standards

Realistic application

Summary of Good Design

Sequence Start with a Hook

Move back and forth from whole to part with increasing complexity

Doable increments

Teach as needed, don’t over-teach first

Flexibility: respond to student questions and needs, revise plan to achieve goals

Level Sample Jigsaw

Use Unit Review ChecklistJigsaw three Stages Share out at group level –

feedback on sample unit

Closure – Ticket out the Door

Big IdeasLingering Questions