Transcript Understanding by Design:

Understanding by Design
the ‘big ideas’
of UbD
© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
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UBD 08/2002
3 Stages of (“Backward”) Design
1. Identify desired results
2. Determine acceptable evidence
3. Plan learning experiences
& instruction
© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
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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
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Understanding by Design Template:
The UbD template
embodies the 3 stages
of “Backward Design”
 The template provides
an easy mechanism for
exchange of ideas
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The “big ideas” of each stage:
Standard(s):
Understandings
Unpack the content
standards and ‘content’,
focus on big ideas
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Essential Questions
What are the big ideas?
Assessment Evidence
Analyze multiple sources
of evidence, aligned with
Stage 1
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Performance Task(s):
Other Evidence:
What’s the evidence?
LearningActivities
Derive the implied
learning from Stages 1
&2
© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
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How will we get there?
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Stage design elements
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Understandings
Task(s)
Questions
Rubric(s)
Learning
Plan
Content
Standards
Other
Evidence
Knowledge
& Skill
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Not necessary to fill template “in order”
There are many ‘doorways’ into successful
design – you can start with...
!
Content standards
 Performance goals
 A key resource or activity
 A required assessment
 A big idea, often misunderstood
 An important skill or process
 An existing unit or lesson to edit
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Other entry points
You can –
Search for, find, and attach other designers’
essential questions and understandings to your
own unit
 Use the web links provided to find ideas on
relevant sites for each design element
 Study exemplary units and adapt them to your
own needs and interests
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Misconception Alert:
the work is non-linear
!
It doesn’t matter where you start as long as
the final design is coherent
(all elements aligned)
Clarifying one element or Stage often forces
changes to another element or Stage
 The template “blueprint” is logical but the
process is non-linear (think: home
improvement!)
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Big ideas provide a way to connect
and recall knowledge
S.A.S.
Congruence
A2 + B2 = C2
© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
The Parallel
postulate
Like rules of a
game
Big Idea:
A system
of many powerful
inferences from a
small set
of givens
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Like Bill of
Rights
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“Big Ideas” are typically revealed via:
Core concepts
 Focusing themes
 On-going debates/issues
 Insightful perspectives
 Illuminating paradox/problem
 Organizing theory
 Overarching principle
 Underlying assumption
 (Key questions)
 (Insightful inferences from facts)
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Big Ideas in Literacy: Examples
Rational persuasion (vs. manipulation)
 audience and purpose in writing
 A story, as opposed to merely a list of events linked
by “and then…”
 reading between the lines
 writing as revision
 a non-rhyming poem vs. prose
 fiction as a window into truth
 A critical yet empathetic reader
 A writer’s voice
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Questions for identifying truly “big ideas”
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Does it have many layers and nuances, not obvious to
the naïve or inexperienced person?
Can it yield great depth and breadth of insight into the
subject? Can it be used throughout K-12?
Do you have to dig deep to really understand its subtle
meanings and implications even if anyone can have a
surface grasp of it?
Is it (therefore) prone to misunderstanding as well as
disagreement?
Are you likely to change your mind about its meaning
and importance over a lifetime?
Does it reflect the core ideas as judged by experts?
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You’ve got to go
below the surface...
to uncover the
really ‘big ideas.’
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3 Stages of Design, elaborated
1. Identify desired results
2. Determine acceptable evidence
3. Plan learning experiences
& instruction
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Stage 1 – Identify desired results.
Key: Focus on Big ideas
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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?
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What should students know and be able to do?
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What content standards are addressed explicitly
by the unit?
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The “big idea” of Stage 1:
The big ideas provide a clear focus for the
unit
Implications:
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Organize content around key concepts
Show how the big ideas offer a purpose and rationale for the
student
You will need to “unpack” Content standards in many cases to
make the implied big ideas clear
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From Big Ideas to Understandings
An understanding is a
“moral of the story” about the big ideas
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What specific insights will students take away
about the meaning of ‘content’ via big ideas?
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Understandings summarize the desired insights
we want students to realize
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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
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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”
 F = ma (weight is not mass)
 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
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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.
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Essential Questions – Ask yourself…
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?
© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
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Essential vs. “leading” Q’s (Stage 3)
Essential - STAGE 1
Leading - STAGE 3
Asked to be argued
 Designed to “uncover”
new ideas, views, lines
of argument
 Set up inquiry, leading
to new understandings
Asked as a reminder, to
prompt recall
 Designed to “cover”
knowledge
 Point to a single,
straightforward fact
- a rhetorical question
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Sample Essential Questions:
Who are my true friends - and how do I know for sure?
 How “rational” is the market?
 Does a good read differ from a ‘great book’? Why are
some books fads, and others classics?
 To what extent is geography destiny?
 Should an axiom be obvious?
 How different is a scientific theory from a plausible
belief?
 What is the government’s proper role?
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3 Stages of Design: Stage2
1. Identify desired results
2. Determine acceptable evidence
3. Plan learning experiences
& instruction
© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
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Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence
Template fields ask:
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What are key complex performance tasks
indicative of understanding?
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What other evidence will be collected to build the
case for understanding, knowledge, and skill?
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What rubrics will be used to assess complex
performance?
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The big idea for Stage 2
The evidence should be credible & helpful.
Implications: the assessments should –
Be grounded in real-world applications, supplemented
as needed by more traditional school evidence
 Provide useful feedback to the learner, be transparent,
and minimize secrecy
 Be valid, reliable - aligned with the desired results of
Stage 1 (and fair)
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Just because the student “knows it” …
Evidence of understanding is a greater
challenge than evidence that the student
knows a correct or valid answer
Understanding is inferred, not seen
 It can only be inferred if we see evidence that
the student knows why (it works) so what? (why
it matters), how (to apply it) – not just knowing
the specific inference
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© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
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Assessment for Understanding
i.e. You really understand when you can:
explain, connect, systematize, predict it
 show its meaning, importance
 apply or adapt it to novel situations
 see it as one plausible perspective among others, question its
assumptions
 see it as its author/speaker saw it
 avoid and point out common misconceptions, biases, or
simplistic views
A detailed, narrated presentation on Evidence of Learning is in
a later module.
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© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
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3 Stages of Design: Stage 3
1. Identify desired results
2. Determine acceptable evidence
3. Plan learning experiences
& instruction
© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
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Stage 3 big idea:
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© 2002 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
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Stage 3 – Plan Learning
Experiences & Instruction
A focus on engaging and effective
learning, “designed in”
What learning experiences and instruction will
promote the desired understanding, knowledge
and skill of Stage 1?
 How will the design ensure that all students are
maximally engaged and effective at meeting the
goals?
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W. H. E. R. E. T. O.
W
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“Where are we headed?” (the student’s question)
How will the student be ‘hooked’?
What opportunities will there be to be equipped, and to
experience and explore key ideas?
What will provide opportunities to rethink, rehearse, refine
and revise?
How will students evaluate their work?
How will the work be tailored to individual needs,
interests, styles?
How will the work be organized for maximal engagement
and effectiveness?
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Next Steps
It is now time for you to begin to complete your
Understanding by Design Template.
Hit escape key to return to class.
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