Understanding by Design - The Backward Planning Model

1. Plan Backwards! Understanding by Design - The Backward Planning Model Based on the work of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

2. Nice to Know Important to Know Essential to Know Standards-Based

3. The process of planning effective instruction for your students is like renovating your dream house!! It involves: Envisioning A Design phase Preparation for construction Demolition and construction The finished product Wiggins likens state standards to the building codes that a home renovator must work within. The goal of a renovation is not to meet the codes! It’s to build your dream house – within the codes.

4. “Results are what counts. You have to measure.” • Unit Planning should answer: • What big ideas and skills should students leave knowing? • What counts as evidence that they really learned this? • What learning experiences in the classroom will get them there? Grant Wiggins Discuss: Where do you recognize evidence of Backward Planning withinthis course?

5. Stage 1: Identify Desired Results a. What enduring understandings are desired? b. What essential questions will guide this unit and focus teaching/learning? c. What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit?

6. What we want students to Know (Facts) • Vocabulary • Terminology • Definitions • Key factual information • Formulas • Critical details • Important events and people • Sequence and timelines

7. What we want students to be able to REMEMBER (Understandings): • Many pioneers, especially children, died from disease. • Much hard work was required to settle new land – clearing fields, constructing shelter. • The pioneers had to grow, or hunt, for their food. Often, they went hungry. • Settlers faced attacks by Native American tribes on whose land they traveled or settled. • Big Idea (The UNDERSTANDING) • The pioneers faced many hardships in the settlement of the West.

8. What we want students to be able to DO: (Skills) • Basic skills – decoding, computation • Communication skills – listening, speaking, writing • Thinking skills – compare, infer, analyze, interpret • Research, inquiry, investigation skills • Study skills – notetaking, fill out charts • Interpersonal, group skills

9. Stage 1: Identify Desired Results a. What enduring understandings are desired? b. What essential questions will guide this unit and focus teaching/learning? c. What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit?

10. Essential Questions should be… • Arguable - and important to argue about • At the heart of the subject • Recurring - in professional work, adult life, as well as in classroom inquiry • Raising more questions for learners – provoking and sustaining engaged inquiry • Centered around important conceptual or philosophical issues • A tool for organizing purpose; for making student learning meaningful and connected

11. Essential Question: • What causes a species to become extinct? • Topical Essential Question: • What caused dinosaurs to become extinct? • Guiding Question: • What is an omnivore? • What was the largest species of dinosaur?

12. Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence d. Through what performance tasks(s) will students demonstrate understanding, knowledge, and skill? e. Through what prompts/academic problems or test/quiz items will students demonstrate understanding, as well as more discrete knowledge, and skill? f. Through what unprompted evidence (e.g., observations, work samples, etc.) will students demonstrate understanding, knowledge, and skill? g. How will students reflect upon, and self-assess their learning?

13. Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction h. What sequence of teaching and learning experiences will equip students to develop and demonstrate the desired understandings? How will the design – W = Help students know where the unit is going? H = Hook all students and hold their interest? E = Equip the students, explore the issues, and experience the key ideas? R = Provide built-in opportunities to rethink and revise their understandings and work? E = Allow students to evaluatetheir work

14. Big ideas and Essential Questions • Performance requirements • Evaluative criteria • Hooks • Variety of strategies / Variety of resources • Facilitates students' active construction of meaning (rather than simply telling) • Incorporates the six facets of understanding • Uses questioning, probing, and feedback • Teaches basic knowledge and skills (in the context of big ideas and explores essential questions) • Uses information from formative assessments THE TEACHER

15. Describe the goals and performance requirements • Explain what they are doing and why • Hooked and remain engaged • Describe the criteria by which their work will be evaluated • Demonstrate learning • Generate relevant questions • Able to explain and justify their work and their answers • Self- or peer-assessment • Use the criteria or rubrics • Set relevant goals THE LEARNER

16. Big ideas and essential questions are posted and remain central to the work of the students • Norms and culture of the classroom support learning • High expectations for all • ALL students and their ideas are treated with dignity and respect • Rubrics are provided • Samples or models of student work are made visible. • Learning experiences are differentiated as needed CLASSROOM ENVIRON MENT