Understanding by Design

Prof. Miguel A. Arce RamosELED 208Methodology of Elementary English Education

What is UbD?• UbD is a way of thinking purposefully about curricular

planning and school reform.

• It offers a 3-stage design process, a set of helpful design tools, and design standards -- not a rigid program or prescriptive recipe.

• The primary goal of UbD is student understanding: the ability to make meaning of “big ideas” and transfer their learning.

What is backward Design• Planning is best done ”backward” from the desired

results and the transfer tasks that embody the goals.

• The 3 Stages (Desired Results, Evidence, Learning Plan) must align for the unit to be most effective.

• “Transfer” refers to the ultimate desired accomplishment: what, in the end, should students be able to do with all this ‘content’, on their own, if this and other related units are successful?

UbD

Stage 1: Identify desired results

Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence

Stage 3: Plan learning experiences & instruction

What is backward design?• 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.

There are three big ideas per stage:

Three Big

Ideas

2. What’s

the evidenc

e?

1. What are the

big ideas? 3. How

will you get

there?

What is behind each stage?• Stage 1:

Understandings

Questions

Content Standards

Knowledge and skill

What is behind each stage?•Stage 2:

RubricsOther EvidenceTask

What is behind each stage?•Stage 3: •Learning Plan

Order• There are many ‘doorways’ into successful

design – you can start with...• Content standards• Performance goals• A key resource or activity• A required assessment• A big idea, often misunderstood• An important skill or process• An existing unit or lesson to edit

Stage 1: Identify desired results

Identify desired results• What do I want my students to understand?

• What should students know, understand and be able to do?

• What are our overall objectives of the unit?

• What will the student recall and remember about the unit?

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 content standards are addressed explicitly by the unit?

Identify desired results• 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

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 organizing purpose for meaningful & connected learning?

Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence

Determine acceptable evidence• How will we know if students have achieved the desired results?

• 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?

Determine acceptable evidence• 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.

• The assessments should be:• 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 - aligned with the desired results of Stage 1 (and fair)

How can we determine if a student knows?• The student must pass through the following 6 facets:

Explain Interpret Apply

Shift Perspective

see it as its author/speak

er saw itSelf-asses

Stage 3: Plan learning experiences & instruction

Plan learning experiences & instruction• Finally, after you have decided what results you want

and how you will know you’ve achieved them, then you start planning how you’re going to teach. 

• You can now move to designing your instructional strategies and students’ learning activities. 

• What are the best exercises, problems or questions for developing your students’ ability to meet your learning goals? 

Plan learning experiences & instruction• How can they practice using new knowledge to gain the skills

you want them to learn? 

• How can they apply their learning? 

• Devise active and collaborative exercises that encourage students to grapple with new concepts in order to “own” them. 

• You want to foster increasing understanding, not rote memorization.