UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN

Overview as Related to Wethersfield’s

Curriculum Template

1. Identify desired results

2. Determine acceptable evidence

3. Plan learning experiences

& instruction

3 STAGES OF (“BACKWARD”) DESIGN

WHY “BACKWARD”?

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

THE “BIG IDEAS” OF EACH STAGE:

Assessment Evidence

Learning Activities

Understandings Essential Questions

stage

2

stage

3

Standard(s):

stage

1

Performance Task(s): Other Evidence:

Unpack the content standards and ‘content’, focus on big ideas Analyze multiple

sources of evidence, aligned with Stage 1Derive the implied learning from Stages 1 & 2

What are the big ideas?

What’s the evidence?

How will we get there?

Essential Elements of Wethersfield’s

Template

COVER• Course Name: • Department:• Grade(s): • Level(s): • Course Number(s): • Credits:• Course Description: This course description also

appears in the course catalogue. •  Required Instructional Materials: Name, author,

date. (publisher and edition) •  Revised/Approval Date: •  Authors/Contributors:

STAGE 1

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 2&3

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

ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS

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

UNDERSTANDINGS: EXAMPLES...

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

EXAMPLES OF ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS

Art One gains insight into a

culture by studying its art forms.

World Language Studying other languages

and cultures offers insights into our own.

Health Participation in lifelong

sports promotes physical and mental wellness.

Music Musical tastes vary. Your

noise is my music.

WHAT ARE THE COMMON ELEMENTS?

• 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.

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

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’

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.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

Essential questions

help drive

instruction

EXAMPLES OF ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

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?

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?

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?

What are the common elements of Essential Questions?

WHAT ARE THE COMMON ELEMENTS?• Have no simple, right answer• Raise other important questions,

often cross subject boundaries• Often address philosophical or

conceptual foundations of a discipline

• 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

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

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?

I have examples of Essential Questions and

Enduring Understandings

OBJECTIVES

Need to be measurable (link to assessments)

No – Fractions, types of energyYes - 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)

UNIT OBJECTIVES

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)

OVERARCHING SKILLS

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.

SKILLS – SCIENCE EXAMPLE - INQUIRY

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.

1. Identify desired results

2. Determine acceptable evidence

3. Plan learning experiences

& instruction

3 STAGES OF UBDSTAGE 2

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

Sample Instructional Support Materials

Microscopes, prepared slides of skin, nerve, muscle, sperm, and other animal and plant cells

Microworlds sciece 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)

Suggested Instructional Strategies

Reflect Best Practices Varied Tied to other parts of template See large handout

Sample Instructional Strategies

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

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

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

Sample Assessment Methods

• 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.

NOT NECESSARY TO FILL IN THE TEMPLATE “IN ORDER”

There are many ‘doorways’ into successful design – you can start with...

There is an alignment between each section of the template

AUDIENCE

• BOE approval process• Parents• New Teachers• Other Districts Should reflect accurately what is

happening in classroom. Should “paint a picture” in the readers mind.

COLLABORATION

Engage in conversations Content Experts Curriculum Experience