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Understanding By Design Stage 1BestPrep TIWMonday, July 30, 2012

What is UbD?Find Cool Activities to Use in the ClassFigure out How to Teach and Grade ActivitiesAlign Activities to the Standards and Core CurriculumTraditional Lesson PlanningDevelop Cool Activities to Use in the Class that Stay with the Student FOREVER!Plan for Students Learning and UnderstandingUnderstand the Standards and Core CurriculumUbD Planning

What is Understanding by Design?2

Step 1: Enduring UnderstandingsStep 2: Essential QuestionsStep 3: Key Knowledge and Skills

Stage 1Establishing what is to be learned.Enduring Understandings: What are the big ideas that you want the students to know?Essential Questions: Questions that we want students to answer that will guide them towards understanding the big ideas we established in our enduring understandings.Key Knowledge and Skills: Other important pieces of knowledge and skills discovered as you identify the essential understandings.

Can be given/shared with administration, parents & students to help inform them of what will be learned and covered in the class.8

Complete your unit/ lesson plan and supplements. Have them ready by Thursday afternoon!BestPrep Technology Lesson LibraryUnit TitleGrade 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)DescriptionEstablished Goals (National, State, Local)Unit/Lesson Plan TemplateEstablished Goals

National OrganizationsMinnesota State StandardsLocal District StandardsWhat Enduring Understandings are desired?What Essential Questions will be considered?Students will know / be able toUnit/Lesson Plan TemplateEnduring UnderstandingsBig 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?

The big ideas are things that students should know after the details are forgotten.Big ideas are abstract and transferableWHY is the topic worth studying?Lasting value beyond the classroomConcept should be uncovered by doing the subject because the understanding is abstract and not immediately obviousEngage the studentsSpecify what is to be understood

9Enduring UnderstandingsThey are the unit concepts that:Have lasting value beyond the classroomWill be retained after the details have been forgottenReside at the heart of the disciplineUncover the concept by doing the subjectOffer potential for engaging students

Overarching vs. TopicalUnderstandingsOverarching Understandings: present enduring, big ideas having lasting value beyond the classroom state big ideas and core processes at the heart of a discipline or programcan be revisited

Topical Understandings:specific to the unit/lesson

Enduring UnderstandingsShouldUse complete sentencesSpecify something to be understoodFocus on big ideas that are abstract and transferableHave the understanding be uncovered, because it is abstract and not immediately obviousShould notBe a phraseRefer to big ideas, but offer no specific claimsSimply state straightforward facts, inquiry is requiredFail to specify what we want the learner to understandRefer to a set of skills, but should offer transferable strategies or principlesSample Enduring Understandings

Writing from another persons 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 disciplineinvolve doing the subject

Require an un-coverage of abstract or often misunderstood ideasself-discovery

Engage students

Enduring UnderstandingsWrite 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 QuestionsPoint to the heart of the disciplineRecur naturallyRaise other important questionsProvide subject- and topic- specific doorways to enduring understandingsHave no obvious right answerAre deliberately framed to provoke and sustain student interest16Essential questions are what we want our students to answer that will guide them towards the big ideas.

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

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

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

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

Tips for using Essential QuestionsGood essential questions:Open-endedTransferableEngagingLead to argument / discussionProvoke inquiryHow 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. Topical19 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 QuestionsStart your questions with:Why? (cause/effect)How? (process)To what extent? (matters of degree or kind)

Avoid starting your questions with:What?21

Essential QuestionsWrite 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 & SkillsKnowledge is what they will know.

Skills are what they will be able to do.

Key Knowledge and SkillsVocabularyTerminologyDefinitionsKey factual informationFormulasCritical detailsImportant events and peopleSequence and timelinesBasic skillsCommunication skillsThinking skillsResearch, inquiry, investigation skillsStudy skillsInterpersonal, group skillsTechnology skills24Other important pieces of knowledge and skills discovered as you identify the essential understandings.These need to be included because they are related to the essential understanding or focus of the unit.

Keep in mind: What knowledge and skills must students learn to:-develop the desired understandings-answer the essential questions-complete the learning activities (designed in stage 3)Facetsof UnderstandingExplanationInterpretationPerspectiveSelf-KnowledgeEmpathyApplication25Students provide evidence to back up claims and assertions and provide thorough, supported, and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data.

Misconceptions:If the student gives a correct answer to a complex and demanding question, he must have an in-depth understanding.If the student cannot write an explanation of his views, he lacks understanding.

Students tell meaningful stories, offer apt translations, provide revealing historical or personal dimensions to ideas and events, and make learning personal through images, anecdotes, analogies, and models.

Misconception:If the student offers an engaged and rich response to literature, he understands that work of literature.

Students effectively use and adapt what they know within new settings and real-world situations, including authentic problem-solving, decision-making, and conflict resolution.

Misconceptions:Any effective performance with knowledge indicates understanding of that knowledge.Any ineffective performance with knowledge indicates a lack of understanding of that knowledge.

Students observe both the big picture and the multiple perspectives that comprise it, examining and assessing various points of view or conflicting issues surrounding a topic, issue, or theme.

Misconception:Having an opinion equals having a perspective

Students walk in the shoes of a fictional character, historical figure, or contemporary individual. They find value in what at first may appear to them as odd, alien, or implausible.

Misconceptions:Empathy is affect, synonymous with sympathy or heartfelt rapport.Empathy requires agreement with the point of view in question.

Students monitor their own comprehension and revise, rethink, reflect, and revisit their growing understanding. They also can articulate what they understand- and fail to understand- in what they are studying or investigating.

Misconception:Self-knowledge equals self-centeredness.

Knowledge and SkillsWrite 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.