Understanding by Design

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Understanding by Design
the big ideas of UbD

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3 Stages of (Backward) Design
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Why backward?

• The stages are logical but they go against habits
• Were 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 DDN Curriculum site provides an easy
  mechanism for exchange of ideas.

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Misconception Alertthe work is non-linear

• It doesnt 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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Youve got to go below the surface...
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to uncover the really big ideas.
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3 Stages of Design, elaborated
2. Determine acceptable evidence
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Stage 1 Identify desired results.

• Key Focus on Big ideas
• 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?
• What should students know and be able to do?
• What content standards are addressed explicitly
  by the unit?

U
Q
K
CS
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Establishing Priorities
Knowledge that is worth being familiar with
Knowledge and skills that are important to know
and do
Understandings that are enduring
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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

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Six Facets of Understanding

• Explain - provide thorough, supported, and
  justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts and data
• Interpret - tell meaningful stories offer apt
  translations provide a revealing historical or
  personal dimension to ideas and events make it
  personal or accessible through images, anecdotes,
  analogies, and models.
• Apply - effectively use and adapt what is known
  in diverse contexts.

• Perspective - can see and hear points of view
  through critical eyes and ears see the big
  picture.
• Empathize - find value in what others might find
  odd, alien, or implausible perceive sensitively
  on the basis of prior direct experience.
• Self-Knowledge - perceive the personal style,
  prejudices, projections, and habits of mind that
  both shape and impede our own understanding
  having an awareness of what one does not
  understand and why understanding is so hard

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Brainstorming Essential Questions Based On the
Facets
Interpretation Explanation
Application critique describ
e build illustrate express create judge
justify design translate predict perform p
rovide metaphors synthesize solve assume
role of be aware of analyze consider realize
argue imagine recognize compare relate
reflect contrast role-play self-assess infe
r Empathy
Self-Knowledge Perspective
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Provocative Essential Questions

• Have no one obvious right answer.
• Raise other important questions.
• Address the philosophical or conceptual
  foundations of a discipline.
• Recur naturally.
• Are framed to provoke and sustain student
  interest.

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SD Content Standards

• Goals - the "end results" of what we expect after
  thirteen years of content study
• Indicators - further define the goals and provide
  the targets and anchors for instructional levels
• Benchmarks - articulate what the goal and
  indicator represent at the different
  developmental levels, providing the targets for
  student performance
• Standards - represent the classroom learning
  objectives or activities to help students reach
  the expectations articulated in the benchmarks,
  indicators, and goals

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Identify the Content Standards for your Unit

• By Goal, Indicator, Benchmark
• 3-5 for a 6 week unit of study
• Remember these are the Big Ideas specifically
  addressed by teaching and learning experiences in
  the unit.
• Specific knowledge and skills (grade level
  standards)will also be listed on the design
  template.

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Test Design Against Standards

• To what extent are the targeted understandings
• Enduring
• Framed as Generalizations
• Framed by Provocative Essential Questions

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Reflection - Stage 1

• Choose 1 to answer individually.
• Share response with your team.
• Team selects 2 to share with group.

• I was surprised
• I have been wondering
• I realized that
• Today I learned...

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3 Stages of Design Stage 2
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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
  that specific inference

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Reliability Snapshot vs. Photo Album

• We need patterns that overcome inherent
  measurement error
• Sound assessment (particularly of State
  Standards) requires multiple evidence over time -
  a photo album vs. a single snapshot

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For Reliability SufficiencyUse a Variety of
Assessments

• Varied types, over time
• authentic tasks and projects
• academic exam questions, prompts, and problems
• quizzes and test items
• informal checks for understanding
• student self-assessments

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Curricular Priorities and Assessment Methods
Assessment Types Traditional quizzes and
tests Paper-pencil Selected-response Constructed-r
esponse Performance tasks and projects Open-ended
Complex Authentic
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Assessment of Understanding Brainstorming.

• Using the Facets of Understanding
• Considering a Range of Evidence
• Determining Possible Performances

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Scenarios for Authentic Tasks
T

• Build assessments anchored in authentic tasks
  using GRASPS
• What is the Goal in the scenario?
• What is the Role?
• Who is the Audience?
• What is your Situation (context)?
• What is the Performance challenge?
• By what Standards will work be judged in the
  scenario?

G
R
A
S
P
S
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A Performance Task is Authentic if it

• Is realistic.
• Requires judgment and innovation.
• Asks a student to do the subject.
• Replicates or simulates the contexts in which
  adults are tested in the workplace.
• Assess a students ability to efficiently and
  effectively use a repertoire of knowledge and
  skills to negotiate a complex task.
• Allows appropriate opportunities to rehearse,
  practice, and consult resources obtain feedback
  on performances and refine performances and
  products.

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Rubrics,Checklists and Other Evidence

• UBD Templates
• Holistic Frame
• Analytic Frame
• Analytic Frame for the Facets

• RubiStar
• PBL Checklists
• QuizStar
• http//4teachers.org

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Test Design Against Standards

• To what extent do the assessment provide
• Valid and Reliable Measures
• Authentic Performance Task Opportunities
• Sufficient and Varied Information

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Reflection - Stage 2

• Choose 1 to answer individually.
• Share response with your team.
• Team selects 2 to share with group.

• I find it interesting that...
• I have been wondering
• Todays activities caused me to think differently
  about __ because...
• Today I learned...

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3 Stages of Design Stage 3
2. Determine acceptable evidence
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Stage 3 big idea
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Taking a Closer Look at...

• Coverage
• vs.
• Uncoverage

• Misunderstanding and
• Misconceptions

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Think of your obligations via W. H. E. R. E. T.
O.
L
W

• Where are we headed? (the students Q!)
• 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?

H
E
R
E
T
O
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Test Design Against Standards

• To what extent will students
• Know where they are headed and why?
• Be hooked?
• Explore and experience key ideas?
• Reflect and Rethink?
• Evaluate their own work?
• Have work tailored to meet their needs?
• Participate in learning activities organized to
  be engaging and effective?

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Reflection - Stage 3

• Choose 1 to answer individually.
• Share response with your team.
• Team selects 2 to share with group.

• I feel comfortable with...
• I would like to learn more about...
• I am still unclear or unsure about...
• I realize I need to take a closer look at...

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Peer Review

• Consider.
• Strengths
• Areas needing improvement
• Feedback
• Guidance

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NBPTS

• In what ways
• does the Backward Design Process support the
  Five Core Propositions of What Accomplished
  Teachers Should Know and Be Able to Do?