Understanding by Design

Understanding by Design Highlights of the Work of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe by Sandy Stuart Lee’s Summit High School Library

Understanding by Design • “Backward Design” focus: • Clarify results and evidence of them before designing lessons. • Teaching for understanding is the goal of teaching and compatible with standards-based curricula. • UbD is a way of thinking more carefully about design, not a program.

Understanding by Design • Thinking like an assessor, not only an activity designer, is key to effective design. • Overcoming the “twin sins” of “aimless activity” and “superficial coverage”. • The work is only “coverage” or “nice activity” unless focused on questions and big ideas, related to the Standards.

3 Stages of “Backward” Design • Identify desired results • Determine acceptable evidence • Plan learning experiences & instruction. Then and only then

The Understanding • Insightful use of knowledge and skill, observable in performance • Revealed via the “six facets” (Think Blume-See handout) • Essential for maximal recall and apt transfer of “content” to new situations • Reflective, recursive “spiral” • Conventional linear [textbook-driven] scope and sequence is a major impediment to developing understanding.

Stage 1 Identify desired results • Consists of four components • Content standards • Understandings • Essential questions • Knowledge and skills • Key: Focus on Big Ideas!

Some questions for identifying truly “big ideas” • Does it have many layers and nuances, not obvious to the naïve or inexperienced person? • Does it yield optimal depth and breadth of insight into the subject? • Do you have to dig deep to really understand its meanings and implications even if you have a surface grasp of it?

Some questions for identifying truly “big ideas” cont. • Is it (therefore) prone to misunderstanding as well as disagreement? • Are you likely to change your mind about its meaning and importance over a lifetime? • Does it reflect the core ideas as judged by experts?

The Big Ideas • To determine the Big Ideas for your unit or course, ask yourself… • Why? So what? • What is the “moral of the story”? • How is _____ applied in the world beyond the classroom? • What couldn’t we do if we didn’t understand _____? Avoid truisms, facts, definitions!

Example: Bill of Rights Redux • Content Standards • Understandings (The Big Ideas) • Students will understand that:

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 the classroom inquiry. • Raise more questions-provoking and sustaining engaged inquiry. • Often raise important conceptual or philosophical issues. • Can provide purpose for learning.

Essential Asked to be argued Designed to “uncover” new ideas, views, lines of argument Set up inquiry, heading to new understandings. Leading Asked as a reminder, to prompt recall Designed to “cover” knowledge Point to a single, straightforward fact-a rhetorical question Essential vs. leading Q’s

Tips for Using Essential Qs • use E.Q.s to organize programs, courses, and units of study. • “less is more” • edit to make them “kid friendly” • post the questions

Knowledge and Skill • Students will know… • Students will be able to… • Example: Bill of Rights

Stage 2 - Assessment Evidence • What are key complex performance tasks indicative of understanding? • What other evidence will be collected to build the case for understanding, knowledge, and skill. • How will students self-assess?

Stage 2 is the essence of backward design & alignment • “Measure what we value; value and act on what we measure.” • Link assessment types to curricular priorities

Assessment types • Traditional • quizzes& tests • paper/pencil • selected-response • constructed response • Performance tasks • & projects • open-ended • complex • authentic Worth being Familiar with Important to know& do Big Ideas Worth understanding

2 Questions for a practical test of performance tasks: • Could the performance be accomplished (or the test be passed) without in-depth understanding? • Could the specific performance be poor, but the student still understand the ideas in question? The goal is to answer NO to both!

Scenarios for Authentic Tasks • Build assessments anchored in authentic tasks using GRASPS: • G-What is the Goal in the scenario? • R-What is the Role? • A-Who is the Audience? • S-What is your Situation (context)? • P-What is the Performance challenge? • S-By what Standards will work be judged in the scenario?

Example: Bill of Rights Redux • Lee’s Summit High School Library: Bill of Rights Redux 2/index.html • Example performance task as a Webquest. For full Bill of Rights UbD Unit, see Teacher Page. • Key Criteria and Other Evidence, including self-assessment

Stage 3-Plan learning experience and instruction • A focus on engaging and effective learning, “designed in” • What learning experiences and instruction will promote the desired understanding, knowledge and skill? • How will you best promote the deepening of insight and interest? • How will you prepare students for the performance(s)?

Organize by W.H.E.R.E. • W = Where are we headed? and why? (from the student’s perspective) • H = How will the student be ‘hooked’? • E = What opportunities will there be to be equipped and explore key ideas. • R = How will we provide opportunities to rethink, rehearse, refine and revise? • E = How will students evaluate (so as to improve) their own performance?

For More Information • Wiggins, Grant & McTighe, Jay. Understanding by Design. New York: Prentice Hall. 2000. • McKenzie, Jamie. Learning to Question, to Wonder, to Learn. New York: Linworth Publishing.2004.

Understanding by Design