Understanding By Design Stage 1

BestPrep TIWMonday, July 30, 2012

What is UbD?

Find Cool Activities to Use in the Class

Figure out How to Teach and Grade

Activities

Align Activities to the Standards and Core Curriculum

Traditional Lesson Planning

Develop Cool Activities to Use in the Class that Stay

with the Student FOREVER!

Plan for Students’ Learning and

Understanding

Understand the Standards and

Core Curriculum

UbD Planning

What is Understanding by Design?

What You Need to do for Your Lesson Plan

Stage 1 – Establishing what is to be learned.

Stage 2 – Determine how the learning is accomplished.

Stage 3 – Develop the COOL learning activities.

Don’t forget about technology integration!

Complete your unit/ lesson plan and supplements. Have them ready by Thursday afternoon!

BestPrep Technology Lesson Library

Unit Title

Grade Level: (example: 9,10, 11, 12 or 7-8)

Subject Area (example: Science, Physics; English, Short Stories)

Duration/Length/Number of class periods (example: 5 class periods)

Description

Established Goals (National, State, Local)

Unit/Lesson Plan Template

Established GoalsNational Organizations

Minnesota State Standards

Local District Standards

What Enduring Understandings are desired?

What Essential Questions will be considered?

Students will know / be able to

Unit/Lesson Plan Template

• Step 1: Enduring Understandings• Step 2: Essential Questions• Step 3: Key Knowledge and Skills

Stage 1Establishing what is to be learned.

Enduring Understandings

• Big ideas that we want students to “get inside of” and retain after the details are forgotten.

• Provide a larger purpose for learning the targeted content: they implicitly answer the question, “Why is this topic worth studying?”

Enduring Understandings

They are the unit concepts that:1. Have lasting value beyond the classroom

2. Will be retained after the details have been forgotten

3. Reside at the heart of the discipline

4. Uncover the concept by “doing” the subject

5. Offer potential for engaging students

Overarching vs. TopicalUnderstandings

• Overarching Understandings: • present enduring, big ideas having lasting

value beyond the classroom • state big ideas and core processes at the heart

of a discipline or program• can be revisited

• Topical Understandings:• specific to the unit/lesson

Enduring Understandings• Should…

– Use complete sentences– Specify something to be

understood– Focus on big ideas that

are abstract and transferable

– Have the understanding be uncovered, because it is abstract and not immediately obvious

• Should not…– Be a phrase– Refer to big ideas, but offer

no specific claims– Simply state

straightforward facts, inquiry is required

– Fail to specify what we want the learner to understand

– Refer to a set of skills, but should offer transferable strategies or principles

Sample Enduring Understandings

• Writing from another person’s point of view can help us to better understand the world, ourselves, and others.

• Sometimes a correct mathematical answer is not the best solution to messy, “real-world” problems.

• Cultural customs in the Hispanic countries regarding interactions between individuals determine if conversation is formal and informal.

Filters for Enduring Understandings:

• Have enduring value beyond the classroom

• Reside at the heart of the discipline• involve doing the subject

• Require an un-coverage • of abstract or often misunderstood ideas• self-discovery

• Engage students

Enduring Understandings

•Write the “Enduring Understandings” students should achieve in the unit.

•Make sure they pass the filters!

•These Enduring Understandings will be included in the final unit/lesson plan.

Step 2: Essential Questions

• Point to the heart of the discipline• Recur naturally• Raise other important questions• Provide subject- and topic- specific doorways to enduring

understandings• Have no obvious “right” answer• Are deliberately framed to provoke and sustain student

interest

1. Organize programs, courses, units of study, and lessons around the questions.

2. Select or design assessment tasks that are explicitly linked to the questions.

3. Edit the questions to make them as engaging and provocative as possible for the particular age group.

4. Derive and design specific concrete exploratory activities and inquiries for each question.

Tips for using Essential Questions

Good essential questions:

Open-ended

Transferable

Engaging

Lead to argument / discussion

Provoke inquiry

How do effective writers hook and hold their readers?

Is history the story told by the “winners”?

How are materials recycled or disposed of?

Does art have a message?

What is unique about the mystery genre?

Does separation of powers create a deadlock?

How do the structure and behavior of insects enable

them to survive?

What do masks and their use reveal about the

culture?

Overarching vs. Topical

Examples of Essential Questions

Why do laws change?

How are sounds and silence organized in various musical forms?

To what extent can use of formal and informal conversation techniques demonstrate cultural understanding?

WRITING ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

• Start your questions with:–Why…? (cause/effect)–How…? (process)–To what extent…? (matters of degree or kind)

• Avoid starting your questions with:– “What…?”

Essential Questions

•Write the “Essential Questions” that point toward the big ideas and the enduring understandings in your unit.

•These Essential Questions will be included in the final lesson plan.

Step 3: Knowledge & Skills

• Knowledge is what they will know.

• Skills are what they will be able to do.

Key Knowledge and Skills

• Vocabulary• Terminology• Definitions• Key factual

information• Formulas• Critical details• Important events and

people• Sequence and

timelines

• Basic skills• Communication

skills• Thinking skills• Research, inquiry,

investigation skills• Study skills• Interpersonal, group

skills• Technology skills

Facetsof

Understanding

Explanation Interpretation

Perspective

Self-KnowledgeEmpathy

Application

Knowledge and Skills• Write the Knowledge and Skills students need

for your unit.

Keep the following questions in mind:• What knowledge and skills must students

learn to:• Develop the desired understandings?• Answer the Essential Questions?

• What “Facets of Understanding” will be used in the lesson/unit?

•These will be included in the final lesson plan.