Understanding by Design

1. Overview as Related to Wethersfield’s Curriculum Template Understanding by Design

2. 1. Identify desired results 2. Determine acceptable evidence 3. Plan learning experiences & instruction 3 Stages of (“Backward”) Design

3. The stages are logical but they go against habits • We’re used to jumping to lesson and activity ideas - before clarifying our performance goals for students • By thinking through the assessments upfront, we ensure greater alignment of our goals and means, and that teaching is focused on desired results Why “backward”?

4. Standard(s): Unpack the content standards and ‘content’,focus on big ideas Understandings Essential Questions s t a g e 1 Assessment Evidence Performance T ask(s): Other Evidence: s Analyze multiple sources of evidence, aligned with Stage 1 t a g e 2 Derive the implied learning from Stages 1 & 2 Learning Activities s t a g e 3 The “big ideas” of each stage: What are the big ideas? What’s the evidence? How will we get there?

5. Essential Elements of Wethersfield’s Template

6. Course Name:  • Department: • Grade(s): • Level(s): • Course Number(s): • Credits: • Course Description: This course description also appears in the course catalogue. • RequiredInstructional Materials: Name, author, date. (publisher and edition) • Revised/Approval Date: • Authors/Contributors: Cover

7. 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, and suggest meaningful and provocative inquiry into content? • What should students know and be able to do? (Objectives) (knowledge & skills) • What content standards are addressed explicitly by the unit? Stage 1

8. Instructional Support Materials • Supplementary (core listed on front page) • Web sites, resources • Reflect Best Practices • Hands-on manipulatives • Suggested Instructional Strategies • Variety • Reflect Best Practices • Suggested Assessment Methods • Variety • Authentic Assessments Stage 2&3

9. An understanding is a “moral of the story” about the big ideas • What specific insights will students take away about the meaning of ‘content’ via big ideas? • Understandings summarize the desired insights we want students to realize Enduring Understandings

10. 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 the “winners” • Math models simplify physical relations – and even sometimes distort relations – to deepen our understanding of them • The storyteller rarely tells the meaning of the story Understandings: examples...

11. Art • One gains insight into a culture by studying its art forms. • World Language • Studying other languages and cultures offers insights into our own. Examples of Enduring Understandings

12. Health • Participation in lifelong sports promotes physical and mental wellness. • Music • Musical tastes vary. Your noise is my music.

13. One gains insight into a culture by studying its art forms. • Musical tastes vary. Your noise is my music. • Participation in lifelong sports promotes physical and mental wellness. • Studying other languages and cultures offers insights into our own. What are the Common Elements?

14. Specific generalizations about the “big ideas.” They summarize the key meanings, inferences, and importance of the ‘content’ • Deliberately framed as a full sentence “moral of the story” – “Students will understand THAT…” • Require “uncoverage” because they are not “facts” to the novice, but unobvious inferences drawn from facts - counter-intuitive & easily misunderstood Understanding, defined: They are...

15. An understanding is an unobvious and important inference, needing “uncoverage” in the unit; knowledge is a set of established “facts”. • Understandings make sense of facts, skills, and ideas: they tell us what our knowledge means; they‘connect the dots’ • Any understandings are inherently fallible “theories”; knowledge consists of the accepted “facts” upon which a “theory” is based and the “facts” which a “theory” yields. Knowledge vs. Understanding

16. Essential questions help drive instruction Essential Questions

17. Art • Do artists have a responsibility to their audience to produce work that does not continue stereotypes or further prejudice? • Foreign Language • Do people from different cultures tell stories in a different fashion with different intentions? Examples of Essential Questions

18. Health • Is the ability to make decisions determined by nature or nurture? • Music • What is the difference, if any, between good music and great music?

19. Art • Do artists have a responsibility to their audience to produce work that does not continue stereotypes or further prejudice? • World Language • Do people from different cultures tell stories in a different fashion with different intentions? • Health • Is the ability to make decisions determined by nature or nurture? • Music • What is the difference, if any, between good music and great music?

20. What are the common elements of Essential Questions?

21. Have no simple, right answer • Raise other important questions, often cross subject boundaries • Often address philosophical or conceptual foundations of a discipline What are the Common Elements?

22. Naturally and appropriately recur to highlight big ideas and issues • Can effectively provoke and sustain student inquiry • Can be overarching and topical, guiding, or provoking

23. What 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 organizing purpose for meaningful & connected learning? Essential Questions

24. I have examples of Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings

25. Need to be measurable (link to assessments) No – Fractions, types of energy Yes - Describe how different types of stored (potential) energy can be used to make Objects move (kinetic energy). (C14) • Link Standards after objective (or paste standard below) Objectives

26. 3.1 Identify the basic parts and functions of a simple compound microscope. (CINQ 5) 3.2 Apply appropriate microscope techniques when observing specimens (creating wet and dry slides, focusing, switching powers, calculate magnification, cleaning, etc.). (CINQ 5) 3.3 Describe the basic structures of an animal cell, including nucleus, cytoplasm, mitochondria, and cell membrane, and how they function to support life. (C15) 3.4 Compare and contrast plant, animal, and bacterial cells. 3.5 Explain the structure and function of the chromosomes found in the nucleus. (C15) Unit Objectives

27. This section includes 21st Century skills and discipline focused skills such as inquiry skills, problem solving skills, research skills, etc. These objectives should be taught and assessed through the integration of the other units. This unit is not meant to be taught in isolation as a separate unit. Overarching Skills

28. Objectives: S.1 Identify questions that can be answered through scientific investigation. S.2 Examine the credibility of scientific claims in different sources. S.3 Design and conduct appropriate types of scientific investigations to answer different questions. S.4 Formulate a hypothesis in the ‘If…., then…because…’ format. S.5 Identify independent and dependent variables, as well as those variables that are kept constant. Skills – Science Example - Inquiry

29. 1. Identify desired results 2. Determine acceptable evidence 3. Plan learning experiences & instruction 3 Stages of UbDStage 2

30. Instructional Support Materials • Supplementary (core listed on front page) • Web sites, resources • Reflect Best Practices • Hands-on manipulatives • What would be helpful to teacher teaching course for the first time? • Budget implications

31. Microscopes, prepared slides of skin, nerve, muscle, sperm, and other animal and plant cells Microworldssciece kit, STC Blank slides, cover slips, iodine, methylene blue, bleach, alcohol, lens paper, Anacharis TV and video scope Plant and animal cell models Color pictures of cells Salt, balances, potatoes www.cellsalive.com http://www.ibiblio.org/virtualcell/index.htm(Virtual cell.com) Sample Instructional Support Materials

32. Suggested Instructional Strategies • Reflect Best Practices • Varied • Tied to other parts of template • See large handout

33. Performance tasks Inquiry investigations Modeling WebQuest Guest speaker – doctor/nurse, lab technician, etc. Use the microscope to observe animal and plant cells and organelles such as cell walls, membranes, nucleus, & chloroplasts Observe the Elodea/Anacharis (plant) under the microscope and prepared cheek cells (animal) Make to-scale labeled drawings of preserved and live slides Assess accuracy of labeled microscope Sample Instructional Strategies

34. Make a diagram/concept map that illustrates the connections between processes that occur in the cell to the same processes that occur in the larger human body (ex. Brain and nucleus control the body, mitochondria and stomach, circulatory system and ER, etc.) Cell analogies - compare the structure and function of the cell organelles to a town, school, factories Edible cell models or three dimensional model Illustrate a selectively permeable membrane and the movement of materials such as water, waste, CO2, H20, and nutrients from a high to low concentration Demonstrate osmosis using a dialysis tubing, soak celery in colored water, soak raisins in water

35. Suggested Assessment Methods • Variety • Authentic tasks and projects • Tied to other parts of template • academic exam questions, prompts, and problems • quizzes and test items • informal checks for understanding • student self-assessments • See large handout

36. Lab reports • • Open-ended questions • • Teacher observations • • Essays and/or compositions • • Models • • Projects and presentations • • Illustrations of structure and function, osmosis, etc • **Could have more specific details. Sample Assessment Methods

37. There are many ‘doorways’ into successful design – you can start with... There is an alignment between each section of the template Not necessary to fill in the template “in order”

38. BOE approval process • Parents • New Teachers • Other Districts • Should reflect accurately what is happening in classroom. Should “paint a picture” in the readers mind. Audience

39. Engage in conversations Content Experts Curriculum Experience Collaboration