Transcript Biology: Exploring Multiple Scientific Perspectives

Understanding By Design:
A “Backward Design” Approach
to Teaching and Learning
Unlocking the keys to
success and understanding
Chuck McWilliams, MRH School District
June 2nd, 2008
"There is nothing so terrible
as activity without insight."
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
German Playwright, Poet, Novelist and Dramatist. 1749-1832
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My Background
• I’m originally from Iowa
• Teaching emphasis: Biology
• Past 14 Years in St. Louis and at MRH:
– First 6…
– Past 8…
• UbD was the event that sparked the
new beginning of my role as a teacher
and leader
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A Brief History of UbD at MRH: Year 1 - 4
2000
to
2001
2001
to
2002
2002
to
2003
2003
to
2004
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Intro to UbD Summer Leadership Seminar;
Design teams form to write unit/study UbD
Adv UbD Summer Training; Continue
writing units/courses; Focus on
assessment
More UbD summer workshops; Peer
Assessment/Unit revision; Reading in
Content Area
Continue work on Unit Revisions;
Pedagogical study teams form;
Study/Research: Reading in Content Area,
Coop. Learning, and Critical Thinking
Pedagogical Study at MRH
Reading in the Content Area
Developing
UbD
Teacher
Competencies
Study
2004-2008+
Critical Thinking
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Cooperative Learning
A Brief History of UbD at MRH: Year 5 - 8
2004
to
2005
Summer UbD conference; Write Teacher
Pedagogical Competencies; Begin working in PAT
team study groups; Finish ALL unit designs
2005
to
2006
Summer UbD/DI Conference; Work on
competencies in PAT teams; “Polishing the Stone”
UbD Workshop
2006
to
2007
Misc. Summer workshops/curriculum development;
PAT team work; Cognitive Coaching
training/implementation w/ PAT specialists; eMINTS
training begins at Middle School
2007
to
2008
MRH hosts AbD w/ Parkway & Bayless; continue
working in PAT teams; eMINTS training at MS and
HS; Orientation to D2L environment
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Year 9: The Future of UbD Study at MRH
Taking MRH Curriculum to the web
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Year 9: The Future of UbD Study at MRH
Taking MRH Curriculum to the web
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Benefits of Using UbD
• It’s a framework for research-based
practices- it’s the GLUE that binds all we do!
• Promotes teamwork - DESIGN TEAMS!
• Promotes professional conversation about
WHAT should be taught - ID Essentials!
• Increased insight about the purposefulness
of curriculum and its impact on students.
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Even MORE Benefits...
• Implementing UbD units helps me reevaluate my priorities - throughout
daily instruction!
• Emphasis is on assessment! Helps
students prepare for MAP and other
tests.
• Analyzing unit design and student work
leads to improved curriculum.
• My curriculum is living and breathing Never something that’s finished.
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Research:
Learning and Cognition
“Learning with understanding is more
likely to promote transfer than simply
memorizing information from a text
or lecture.”
-Bransford, et. Al., How People Learn, p.224
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UbD Supports Learning and Cognition
From How People Learn (National Research Council, 2000):
• Teachers need to recognize and draw-out
preconceptions from their students and base
instructional decisions on the information they
get from their students.
• Teachers need to teach their subject matter in a depth
so that facts are conveyed in a context with examples
and a conceptual framework.
• Teachers need to integrate metacognitive skills into
the curriculum and teach those skills explicitly.
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Some important questions...
 What is worth understanding?
 What is understanding? How will we
know that students really understand?
 Why are the best curriculum designs
“backward”?
 How might teachers “work smarter” (not
harder!) in curriculum design?
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“Backward Design”
The “Understanding by Design” Approach
by Wiggins and McTighe
Stage 1 - Enduring Understandings, Essential
Questions, Key Knowledge and Skills
Stage 2 - Assess Enduring Understandings
Stage 3 - Design Meaningful Learning Activities
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How It All Fits Together
Workshop
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Understanding by Design
is not…
a prescriptive program
an instructional model
opposed to traditional testing
and grading
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Key to Backward Design
Think like an assessor!
View: “A Private Universe”
Note: Provide an example in your own
experience when you thought everyone
understood the lesson, but students still
couldn’t explain.
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A Private Universe
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Key to Backward Design
Think like an assessor!
Be clear about what evidence of
learning you seek.
Design assessments before you design
lessons and activities.
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Structure of Knowledge
Principles
and
Generalizations
Key Concepts and
Core Processes
Facts and Skills
Wiggins, Grant, & McTighe, Jay. (1998). Understanding by Design. ASCD.
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More specifically… What is knowledge?
Declarative Knowledge
Knowing WHAT
Procedural Knowledge
Knowing HOW
Structural Knowledge
Knowing WHY
-Jonassen, Computers as Mindtools for Schools, 2000
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Matters of Understanding
• Big ideas or core processes
at the “heart” of the discipline
• “Enduring” - lasting value
beyond the classroom
• Transferable to other topics and inquiries
• Require “uncoverage”
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Two Types of Understandings
• Overarching - Example: Great artists often
break with established traditions, conventions
and techniques to better express what they
see and feel.
• Topical - Example: Impressionist artists used
novel painting techniques to represent
everyday life. They used color, light, and
shadow to convey the impression of reflected
light at a particular moment.
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Concepts - Transferable “Big Ideas”
examples...
Adaptation
Change
Energy
Exploration
Freedom
Interaction
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Justice
Migration
Patterns
Power
Symbol
Systems
Junk Bags
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Establishing Curricular Priorities
worth being
familiar with
important to
know and do
“big ideas”
worth
understanding
“nice to know”
foundational
concepts &
skills
enduring
understandings
Wiggins, Grant, & McTighe, Jay. (1998). Understanding by Design. ASCD.
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Establishing Curricular Priorities
Content Standards
worth being
familiar with
• Identify “Big Ideas”
• Then,frame them as
generalizations and
essential questions
important to
know and do
“big ideas”
worth
understanding
Wiggins, Grant, & McTighe, Jay. (1998). Understanding by Design. ASCD.
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Finding “Big Ideas” in the Content Standards
Ask:
• Why? So what?
• What is the “moral of the story”?
• How is ____ applied in the world
beyond the classroom?
• What couldn’t we do if we didn’t
understand ____ ?
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What is Understanding?
Six Facets of Understanding:
Application
Explanation
Interpretation
Empathy
Perspective
Self-Knowledge
Superficial Coverage
versus
Uncovering the Big Ideas
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The Six Facets of Understanding
Explanation
_______
Self-Knowledge
Wiggins, Grant, & McTighe, Jay. (1998). Understanding by Design. ASCD.
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Using UbD in a Sophomore Biology Class
Chuck McWilliams, Biology Teacher
Maplewood-Richmond Heights HS
Maplewood, MO
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Planning For a “New” Course
• Develop Course Enduring Understandings
Ex.) Life functions as a complex system that exists at many
different levels
• Develop Essential Questions
Ex.) How can scientists lead us to understanding how life
functions as a system?
• Develop course assessments - semester exams
• Develop individual units and assessments
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A “New” Biology Course
• How does a(n) ________ come to know the
world and humans’ place in it?
• Each of the eight instructional units focuses on the
Perspective of a scientist
• During the year, each student will become a:
–
–
–
–
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Biologist
Ecologist
Biochemist
Cell Biologist
–
–
–
–
Molecular Biologist
Geneticist
Naturalist
Taxonomist
Learning from Different Perspectives
Cell Biologist
Molecular Biologist
Biochemist
Geneticist
Ecologist
Biologist
Naturalist
Student
Taxonomist
Biology: Exploring Multiple Scientific Perspectives
McWilliams, 2008
Sample Unit: Unit 6 - Geneticist
Enduring Understandings:
1. Patterns of inheritance can be predicted in
living things.
2. Genetic and environmental factors
determine the physical characteristics of
living things.
3. As genetic research continues, society will
face ethical challenges. Participating in
the ethical decision making process will
require carefully analyzing scientific
research and understanding different
points of view.
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EU
Essential Questions
What will Guide My Students?
• If offspring inherit their parents genes, then
why don’t they look exactly like their parents?
• What effect does the environment have on
gene expression?
• How will scientists use the information from
generated the Human Genome Project?
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Performance Assessment
How will I know my students understand?
• PersonaGen® Array 119™ Genetic Test
• Students receive a simulated genetic test (multiple tests all at
once)
• They must interpret their profile
• Research and learn about their assigned “mutations”
• Write a 6 paragraph essay detailing their profile and the effect it
would have on their personal and career life
• Also included in the essay is a discussion/analysis concerning
genetic testing in general
• In class discussion and rubrics included
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How It All Fits Together
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How It All Fits Together
W
W
HH
How will we hook and hold
student interest?
EE
How will we equip students
for expected performances?
R
How will we help students rethink
and revise?
R
E
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Where are we going? Why?
What is expected?
E
T
How will students self-evaluate
and reflect on their learning?
OT
How will we tailor the learning plan?
O
How will we organize and sequence
the learning?
How It All Fits Together
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Some Lessons Learned About Stage 3
• Protecting your favorite activities?
• Including FUN activities?
• Be aware of TIME and pacing
• Scaffold toward the Performance
Task and other assessments
• Unit Planning vs. Lesson Planning
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How It All Fits Together
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Table Talk - Essential Questions
• What makes essential questions
essential about learning?
• What are the characteristics of
effective essential questions?
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Ideally, Essential Questions should…
• Go to heart of discipline
• Recur naturally throughout ones learning and
in the history of the field
• Raise further questions into the unit’s “Big Idea”
• Have no one right answer (debatable)
• Be deliberately framed to provoke and sustain
student interest and engage the students in
attempting to answer the questions
• Be derived from the enduring understandings
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Tips on writing EQs:
• Organize units around questions
• Design assessment tasks that are
explicitly linked to the questions
• Frame questions in “kid language” to make
them more accessible
• Sequence the questions so that they naturally
lead to one another
• Post the essential questions in the classroom
and refer back to them throughout the unit
• Allot sufficient time for discussion of
questions with students
• Through a survey or informal checks, ensure
that every child understands
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Examples of good ones...
• How can a diet be healthy for
one person and not another?
• Why do people move?
• How does where we live influence
how we live?
• What makes places unique and different?
• What is the relationship between cooperation
and competition?
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Not so good ones…
• Is the weatherman always right?
• Is Huck Finn a hero?
• How many legs does a spider have?
• How does an elephant use its trunk?
• How do you measure 3-D objects?
• How are fractions and percentages related?
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Assessing Essential Questions
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Is the unit focused on important and engaging questions?
Level 3:
Important and thought provoking;more than single
“correct” answer, promote inquiry rather than
recall, great potential for student engagement,
unifying focus to guide teaching/learning
Level 2:
Appropriate for topic; not clearly focused on most
important ideas/concepts; do not have single
“correct” answer, may not require much inquiry
or engage students
Level 1:
Do not focus on big ideas/core processes; not
thought provoking; unlikely to engage
students; may have one “correct answer”
and be too narrow to guide unit
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Barriers to Making UbD Work?
Lessons from Chapter 13:
• Misconception #1 - “Yes, but… we have to
teach to the test.”
• Misconception #2 - “Yes, but… we have to
much content to cover.”
• Misconception #3 - “Yes, but… this work is
too hard and I just don’t have the time.”
Wiggins, Grant, & McTighe, Jay. (1998). Understanding by Design. ASCD.
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Challenges using UbD
• UbD takes TIME to become part of the
culture of the learning community.
• It can create tension and anxiety!
• Success requires ongoing professional
dialogue, sharing, support, and
encouragement
• It’s for every teacher! Peer support!
• It works WITH high stakes testing!
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Process vs. Product: Asking Questions
• I finished writing this unit and/or
lesson. Am I finished now?
• Is curriculum “living and breathing?”
• How do I find time? Time!?! Reflective
practitioners take time to assess,
rethink, and revise unit designs.
• ALWAYS ASK: What keeps
students most engaged in
meaningful work?
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Lessons Learned About UbD
• Implementing UbD units helps me reevaluate my priorities - throughout
daily instruction!
• Emphasis is on assessment! Helps
students prepare for state tests.
• Analyzing unit design and student work
leads to improved curriculum.
• My curriculum is living and breathing Never something that’s finished.
McWilliams, 2008
The Key to Success!
“We cannot teach
people anything; we can
only help them discover
it within themselves.”
Galileo Galilei
16th century Italian scientist
-
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Have a Great Journey This Year!
Enjoy learning in your curriculum teams!
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