{"id":1090,"date":"2019-05-17T15:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T15:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-education\/?post_type=chapter&p=1090"},"modified":"2019-05-20T16:04:20","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T16:04:20","slug":"understanding-by-design-ubd","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-education\/chapter\/understanding-by-design-ubd\/","title":{"raw":"Understanding by Design (UbD)","rendered":"Understanding by Design (UbD)"},"content":{"raw":"

Overview<\/h2>\r\nUnderstanding by Design<\/strong>, an excellent book by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, offers a powerful framework for designing courses through what they call \u201cBackward Design.\u201d\u00a0 It seems \u201cbackward\u201d in that it starts from the opposite end of the planning process we typically go through to design courses\u2014we usually start by thinking about how to teach our content.\u00a0 Backward Design, in contrast, leaves teaching activities until the end and starts with the desired results of that teaching.\u00a0 In other words, Wiggins and McTighe argue that you can\u2019t start planning\u00a0how<\/em>\u00a0you\u2019re going to teach until you know exactly\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0you want your students to learn.\r\n\r\n\u201cTeaching is a means to an end.\u00a0 Having a clear goal helps us educators to focus our planning and guide purposeful action toward the intended results.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe Backward Design process proceeds in three phases, as follows:\r\n

I. Identify desired results<\/h3>\r\nFirst, you establish your learning goals for the course.\u00a0 What should students know, understand and be able to do?\u00a0 And how do you prioritize and narrow down the content you want to teach so it fits within the limited framework of the course?\u00a0 Wiggins and McTighe provide a useful process for establishing curricular priorities.\u00a0 They suggest you ask yourself three questions as you progressively focus in on the most valuable content:\r\n
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  1. What should participants hear, read, view, explore or otherwise encounter?\u00a0\u00a0 This knowledge is \u201cworth being familiar with.<\/em>\u201d<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. What knowledge and skills should participants master?\u00a0 Sharpen your choices by considering what is \u201cimportant to know and do\u201d<\/em>for your students.\u00a0 What facts, concepts and principles should they know?\u00a0 What processes, strategies and methods should they learn to use?<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. What are big ideas and important understandings participants should retain?\u00a0 These choices are the \u201cenduring understandings\u201d<\/em>that you want students to remember after they\u2019ve forgotten the details of the course.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nAnswering each of these questions will help you determine the best content for your course,and<\/em>\u00a0create concrete, specific learning goals for your students.\r\n

    II. Determine acceptable evidence<\/h3>\r\nIn the second phase of Backward Design, you think about how you will decide if students are starting to master the knowledge and skills you want them to gain.\u00a0 What will you accept as evidence that students are making progress toward the learning goals of the course?\u00a0 How will you know if they are \u201cgetting it\u201d?\r\n\r\nWhen planning how you will collect this evidence, consider a wide range of assessment methods (for example, essay tests, term papers, short-answer quizzes, homework assignments, lab projects, problems to solve, etc.) in order to ensure that you test for exactly the learning you want them to gain.\u00a0 In other words, sometimes our assessments don\u2019t match our learning goals and we therefore cannot attain the evidence we want.\r\n\r\nFor example, if one of your goals is for student to learn how to problem-solve, give them an assessment that requires a demonstration of their problem-solving skills.\u00a0 Have them write out each step they took in addressing the problem, and an explanation of why they took it, instead of simply providing the right answer.\r\n

    III. Plan learning experiences & instruction<\/h3>\r\nFinally, after you have decided what results you want and how you will know you\u2019ve achieved them,\u00a0then\u00a0<\/em>you start planning how you\u2019re going to teach.\u00a0 You can now move to designing your instructional strategies and students\u2019 learning activities.\u00a0 What are the best exercises, problems or questions for developing your students\u2019 ability to meet your learning goals?\u00a0 How can they practice using new knowledge to gain the skills you want them to learn?\u00a0 How can they apply their learning?\u00a0 Devise active and collaborative exercises that encourage students to grapple with new concepts in order to \u201cown\u201d them.\u00a0 You want to foster increasing understanding, not rote memorization.\r\n

    Resources<\/h2>\r\n