Transcript Slide 1

Homework Assignment
What are my strengths and weaknesses as a
lesson planner? Since Understanding by Design is
about good design, think about your best and
worst ‘designs’ of learning. What have been the
obstacles to good design? Where do you need to
improve? How do you expect your practice to
change as a result of Understanding by Design?
Four Corners
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Work expands so as to fill the time available
for its completion. –C. Northcote Parkinson
Do what you can, with what you have, where
you are. - Theodore Roosevelt
Still round the corner there may wait, a new
road or a secret gate. – J.R.R. Tolkien
What is the use of running if you are on the
wrong road? –Old Saying
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Four Corners
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Discuss with the others in
your corner. Why did you
choose this corner? What
about your chosen quote
resonates with you?
Discuss how your chosen
quote relates to curriculum
design?
As a group, summarize your
discussion and add your
thoughts to the poster.
If Understanding by
Design is the
solution, what’s the
problem???
Making the Case
Regional MEAP Content Trends: All Grades
100.00%
90.00%
80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
2007-08
2008-09
2009-10
Reading
Math
2010-11
Science
2011-12
SS
CWRA – Regional Results
Reasons Students Dropout
TBAISD 4 year Dropout Rate = 18%
Lack of connection to
school
 Unmotivated
 Bored
 Lack of relevancy
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-Silent
Epidemic
Teacher (dis)Satisfaction
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Lack of autonomy
Feeling of pressured away for passion
Lesson planning issues
 Not
sure how and what to prepare
 Over taxing amount of time
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Relationships with parents
Inadequate feeling of success
Teacher satisfaction and student performance are
related.
Far less interesting to me than
whether a student has learned
what he was supposed to is the
questions “Has the child been
given something to do worth
learning?”
-Alfie Kohn
If you ask me what to do about a kid
being “off-task”, my first response in
going to be:
“What’s the task?”
-Alfie Kohn
Ask me about the puppets
Making School Valuable
Focus on Instruction
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Alignment
Rigor
Relevance
Engagement
Transfer of knowledge
High Quality Instructional
Strategies
Technology integration
Performance Task
Transparency of intent
Definition Development
Activity…
Rigorous Curriculum Defined
A rigorous curriculum is an inclusive set of intentionally
aligned components…
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clear learning outcomes,
matching assessments,
engaging learning experiences,
and high-impact instructional strategies
…organized into sequenced units of study.
Teaching Traps
Engagement without rigor
Rigor without engagement
Lack of transfer
An important (and loaded) question:
Who’s job is it to build
curriculum?
Pink Square
What is the message?
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If your plan is for a
year, plant rice. If your
plan is for a decade,
plant trees. If our plan is
for a lifetime, educate
children.
- Confucius
Agenda
Course Description and Mechanics
Essential Questions
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What is “backwards” design?
How can I focus my instruction to assure maximum
impact?
How will I decide whether students are learning
what I intend for them to learn?
How do I select activities to achieve those ends?
How will this make teaching more efficient and
effective?
Learning Objectives
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Demonstrate knowledge and use of unit design model
Develop, evaluate and modify a unit of study that promotes
student understanding and articulation of the units’ essential
questions.
Develop formative assessments to be used in the unit
Develop summative assessment to determine effectiveness of
the unit
Develop lesson/activities that correspond with the unit goals
Identify and incorporate best practice strategies
Work with colleagues to analyze and evaluate units
Misconceptions
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Standardized assessment and state standards have
eliminated the need for unit planning.
Unit design is something other people should do for
me so I can focus on my teaching.
Unit design takes too much time.
Tying Shoes
1. Take the right lace and cross it over the left lace, grasping the laces together where
they have formed an X.
2. The right lace will go down, under and through the left lace.
3. Grab the right lace in your left hand and the left lace in your right and pull them
tightly. You have formed the first knot.
4. Form a loop holding it with your right index finger and thumb close to the book or
shoe.
5. Take the left lace and go around the loop. Feel for the thumb on your right hand and
that’s where you will push the lace through. Grasp the emerging loop with your right
thumb and index finger.
6. Slip your left hand to the top of the left loop.
7. Pull on both loops until they are tight.
8. Check by feeling the length of your loops to make them even. Check the length of
the ties to make sure they aren’t too long.
Assignments
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Sequentially design a unit plan
 Stage
1(essential questions, learning objectives, etc)
 Stage 2 (assessment strategies)
 Stage 3 (learning activities)
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Share each step of your design
Receive and provide peer feedback during the
development process (on-line)
Reflection on reading and learning (on-line)
Participate in class activities
MOODLE
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How to enroll
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How to navigate
Video Clip
Understanding by Design
Using the Backward Design
Process: Stage 1
UbD in a Nutshell
Course Understandings:
Effective curriculum design evolves
backward from clear goals and is
aligned across all three stages.
UbD is a way of thinking more carefully
about curriculum design; it is not a
prescriptive program.
Using design standards improves
quality.
The UbD design process is nonlinear
and iterative.
Teaching and assessing for
understanding enhances learning of
content standards.
UbD in a Nutshell…
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Read page 1.
Take a few minutes to
write down
your
thoughts
about the
statement that has the same
number as your playing card.
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Find the other class members
with the same card number
and discuss your responses.
As a group, write any thoughts
or questions that you have
about the statement on the
prepared paper.
Be prepared to share out with
the whole group.
Essential Questions
By George Carlin
Essential Questions
Why don’t’ sheep shrink when it rains?
Is a vegetarian permitted to eat animal crackers?
Is it possible to be totally partial?
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
Why do croutons come in airtight packages?
Essential Questions
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If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?
If all the world is a stage, where is the audience
sitting?
Is it true that cannibals don’t eat clowns because they
taste funny?
How is it possible to have a civil war?
Essential Questions
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What was the best thing before sliced bread?
If a cow laughed real hard, would milk come out her
nose?
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Does a fish get cramps after eating?
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Why isn’t “phonetic” spelled that way it sounds?
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Shouldn’t there be a shorter word for monosyllabic?
UbD in a Nutshell
Stage 1: Desired Results
Goals
Big Ideas
Essential Questions
Knowledge
Skills
Possible Misconceptions
Driver’s Education
Stage 1: Desired Results
My Goals:
 Student will safely operate a vehicle in a variety of
traffic situations and road conditions.
 Student will recognize when a vehicle is safe to
operate.
 Student will assess whether a driver is safe to drive.
 Student will accept the responsibilities of vehicle
ownership and operation.
Driver’s Ed
My Big IDEAS:
 Rules are developed to assure the safety of
yourself and others.
 Following the rules will keep you and others safe.
 Situations and conditions are not always
predictable.
 The privilege of driving comes with personal
responsibility towards safety.
Driver’s Ed
My Essential Questions:
 When is a car safe to drive?
 When is a person safe to operate a vehicle?
 What is the safest way to react to various driving
situations?
Knowledge and Skills (samples)
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Knowledge:
 Recite
state laws
related to the influence
of alcohol;
 Explain the Good
Samaritan Law;
 Estimate vehicle
ownership costs;
 Match road signs to
meanings.
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Skills:
 Demonstrate
a predriving inspection;
 Start a car;
 Execute a highway
merge;
 Stop and park on hilly
terrain;
 Park a car at an angle.
Driver’s Ed
My Misconceptions:
 Everyone on the roads follows the rules.
 There is a rule for every situation. I don’t need to
think, I just need to follow the rules.
 How safe I choose to be is my own business.
 Driving becomes predictable over time.
Second Grade Measurement
Start with what you know…
Second Grade Measurement
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Long-term transfer goals are identified.
Only those goals or content standards that are directly relevant to the unit and
assessed in Stage 2 are listed.
Second Grade Measurement
•The understandings derive from and/or are aligned with appropriate goals.
•The understandings are both overarching (to promote transfer of “big ideas”)
and topical (specific enough to focus teaching, learning and assessment).
• The understandings are framed as full-sentence generalizations in response
to the stem: “Students will understand that…”
• The understandings are not obvious factual knowledge. They need to be
“uncovered” in order for students to come to understand them.
Second Grade Measurement
•Overarching essential questions clarify the big ideas and connect to other
topics/contexts.
•Topical essential questions frame and guide inquiry into the topic.
• The essential questions are thought-provoking and arguable, rather than
“leading” questions that point to facts.
• The essential questions are framed in appropriate “kid-language” to make
them accessible to students.
Second Grade Measurement
•Key knowledge and skills, needed to meet the standards and enable the
desired understandings/transfer, are identified.
•Only knowledge and skills that will be directly taught (in stage 3) and
assessed (in Stage 2) are listed.
Second Grade Measurement
How can misconceptions be used as learning opportunities?
Second Grade Measurement
Use the prepared template to
list your standards, write goals
from the standards, develop
Big Ideas and Essential
Questions, identify key
knowledge and skills and
anticipate misconceptions.
Roll your sleeves up
and get to work