Understanding by Design

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Understanding by Design
The Big Ideas of UbD

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3 Stages of (Backward) Design
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Understanding by Design Template

• The UbD template embodies the 3 stages of
  Backward Design
• The template provides an easy mechanism for
  exchange of ideas

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The big ideas of each stage
What are the big ideas?
Whats the evidence?
How will we get there?
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Components of Each Stage
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
L
Learning Plan
T
U
Understandings
Task(s)
R
Questions
Rubric(s)
Q
Content Standards
OE
Other Evidence
CS
Knowledge Skill
K
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Standards

• Process Standards
• Content Standards
• Grade Level Expectations
• I Can Statements

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The big ideas provide a way to connect and recall
knowledge
Originality
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Other Big Ideas in Literacy

• Rational persuasion vs. manipulation
• Audience and purpose in writing
• A story, as opposed to merely a list of events
  linked by and then
• Reading between the lines
• writing as revision
• A non-rhyming poem vs. prose
• Fiction as a window into truth
• A critical yet empathetic reader
• A writers voice

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Questions for identifying truly big ideas

• Does it have many layers and nuances, not obvious
  to the naïve or inexperienced person? Reflect the
  core ideas as judged by experts?
• Is it (therefore) prone to misunderstanding as
  well as disagreement?
• Can it be used throughout K-12?
• Are you likely to change your mind about its
  meaning and importance over a lifetime?

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Youve got to go below the surface...
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to uncover the really big ideas.
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3 Stages of Design, elaborated
2. Determine acceptable evidence
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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, and suggest meaningful and provocative
  inquiry into content?
• What should students know and be able to do?
• What content standards are addressed explicitly
  by the unit?

U
Q
K
CS
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The Big Idea of Stage 1

• There is a clear focus in the unit
• on the big ideas
• Implications
• Organize content around key concepts
• Show how the big ideas offer a purpose and
  rationale for the student!
• You will need to unpack Content standards in
  many cases to make the implied big ideas clear

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From Big Ideas to Understandings about them
U

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

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Understanding, defined They are...

• 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

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Understandings Examples...
U

• Great artists often break with conventions to
  better express what they see and feel.
• Friendships can be deepened or undone by hard
  times
• History is the story told by the winners
• The storyteller rarely tells the meaning of the
  story

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Knowledge vs. Understanding

• 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

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Essential Questions
Q

• 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

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Sample Essential Questions
Q

• Who are my true friends - and how do I know for
  sure?
• Does a good read differ from a great book? Why
  are some books fads, and others classics?
• To what extent is geography destiny?
• How different is a scientific theory from a
  plausible belief?
• What is the governments proper role?

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3 Stages of Design Stage 2
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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?
• What rubrics will be used to assess complex
  performance?

T
OE
R
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The big ideafor Stage 2

• The evidence should be credible helpful.
• Assessments should
• Be grounded in real-world applications,
  supplemented as needed by more traditional school
  evidence
• Provide useful feedback to the learner, be
  transparent, and minimize secrecy
• Be valid, reliable, and fair - aligned with the
  desired results of Stage 1

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Just because the student knows it

• Evidence of understanding is a greater challenge
  than evidence that the student knows a correct or
  valid answer
• Understanding is inferred, not seen
• It can only be inferred if we see evidence that
  the student knows why (it works) so what? (why it
  matters), how (to apply it) not just knowing
  that specific inference

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Assessment of Understanding via the 6 facets

• i.e. You really understand when you can
• Explain, connect, systematize, predict it
• Show its meaning, importance
• Apply or adapt it to novel situations
• See it as one plausible perspective among
  others, question its assumptions
• See it as its author/speaker saw it
• Avoid and point out common misconceptions,
  biases, or simplistic views

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Scenarios for Authentic Tasks
T

• Build assessments anchored in authentic tasks
  using GRASPS
• What is the Goal in the scenario?
• What is the Role?
• Who is the Audience?
• What is your Situation (context)?
• What is the Performance challenge?
• By what Standards will work be judged in the
  scenario?

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R
A
S
P
S
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Reliability Snapshot vs. Photo Album

• We need patterns that overcome inherent
  measurement error
• Sound assessment (particularly of State
  Standards) requires multiple evidence over time -
  a photo album vs. a single snapshot

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For Reliability SufficiencyUse a Variety of
Assessments

• Varied types, over time
• Authentic tasks and projects
• Academic exam questions, prompts, and problems
• Quizzes and test items
• Informal checks for understanding
• Student self-assessments

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Some key understandings about assessment

• The local assessment is direct the MAP is
  indirect (an audit of local work)
• The only way to assess for understanding is via
  contextualized performance - applying in the
  broadest sense our knowledge and skill, wisely
  and effectively

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3 Stages of Design Stage 3
2. Determine acceptable evidence
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Stage 3 Big Idea
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Stage 3 Plan Learning Experiences Instruction

• A focus on engaging and effective learning,
  designed in
• What learning experiences and instruction will
  promote the desired understanding, knowledge and
  skill of Stage 1?
• How will the design ensure that all students are
  maximally engaged and effective at meeting the
  goals?

L
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Think of your obligations via W. H. E. R. E. T.
O.
L
W

• Where are we headed? (the students Q!)
• How will the student be hooked?
• What opportunities will there be to be equipped,
  and to experience and explore key ideas?
• What will provide opportunities to rethink,
  rehearse, refine and revise?
• How will students evaluate their work?
• How will the work be tailored to individual
  needs, interests, styles?
• How will the work be organized for maximal
  engagement and effectiveness?

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