Understanding by Design In Social Studies

in Social Studies

Refresher TrainingJennifer Rauscher, Angie Strick & Paul Aleckson

March 2, 2009

  

To sum up …

Big ideas go beyond discrete facts or skills to focus on larger concepts, principles, or processes. These are applicable to new situations within or beyond the subject.

Wiggins & McTighe, Understanding

by Design 2e, 2005

Concepts:Rules/Laws ValuesConflict InterdependenceFairness DiversityPower RightsAdaptation MovementDiffusionDemocracyRegion Self InterestGovernment CooperationCompromise AggressionInnovation Leadership

Understanding concepts is ultimately what enables students to transfer understandings learned in one time/place setting to a new time and place – even a setting with which they have no previous acquaintance. When we teach concepts we allow our students to transcend the settings that we have taught.

-John Hergesheimer

Concepts and Generalizations: Teaching for Understanding in Social Studies

Using BIG IDEAS to Teach History

Points to consider• Both models value foundation of specific fact-

based knowledge and skills

• Difference is in culminating focal point of instruction

• Topic-based: learning specific facts about a given topic

• Concept-based: learning conceptual understandings drawn from the facts– Learning WHY things happen rather than WHAT

HAPPENED in the past.

be able to list all of the compromises made at the Constitutional Convention

OR

be able to explain the role of compromise and conflict throughout history using examples from the Constitutional Convention?

Would you rather your students…

• be able to tell you the populations, natural resources, and climates found in Latin America

OR

• be able to explain the impact of population, natural resources, and climate on Latin America’s role in the contemporary world?

• Concepts include:– Global connections

– People, places, and environment

– Production, distribution, and consumption

You’ve got to go

below the surface...

1. Identify desired results

2. Determine acceptable evidence

3. Plan learning experiences

& instruction

3 Stages of (“Backward”) Design

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

to uncover the really ‘big ideas.’

Worth being familiar with

Important to know and do

“Enduring” understanding

Establishing Priorities

Worth being familiar with

Important to know and do

“Enduring” understanding

Knowledge that is worth being familiar with

Knowledge and skills that are important to know and do

Understandings that are enduring

Taking a Closer Look at Understandings: They are...

– specific generalizations about the “big ideas.” They summarize the key meanings, inferences, and importance of the ‘content’

– Require “uncoverage” because they are not “facts” to the novice, but unobvious inferences drawn from facts - counter-intuitive & easily misunderstood

– deliberately framed as a full sentence “moral of the story” – “Students will understand THAT…”