Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe Chapter 7: What is “Uncoverage”? Created & Presented by Jane Cook, EASTCONN Staff Development/Literacy & Technology Specialist Mill #1, 322 Main Street Willimantic, CT (860) , ext

Essential Questions §What is uncoverage? §What is the difference between covering and uncovering the curriculum? §How do we ensure depth and breadth in curriculum design?

Enduring Understandings §Students will understand that uncoverage is essential for deep understanding. §Students will understand how to apply the concept of “uncoverage” to their curriculum design work.

Where Are We in the UBD Process? Stage 3: Designing Learning Activities §What learning experiences and teaching promote understanding, interest and excellence? (p. 99)

What is “uncoverage”? §Uncovering and bringing abstract ideas and far-away facts to life §Helping students see learning as connected, not isolated from real life §Asking students to explain, interpret and apply knowledge Simply put, “uncoverage” is a shorthand phrase for the results of inquiries, problems and arguments. (p )

Why do we need to uncover? §To bring knowledge to life §To ensure that the learner, not the teacher, makes the connections §To transform facts and ideas into meanings When a teacher designs to “uncover”, s/he provides materials, resources and learning activities that allow students to “connect the dots” to create their own meaning. (p )

How do we design for “uncoverage”? §Through Depth AND §Through Breadth (p )

What is depth? §Going below the surface of a topic §Digging deeper In-depth is the opposite of superficial. Going in-depth means designing curriculum that encourages students to dig deeply, explore important ideas and learn significant concepts. (p )

What is breadth? §Freedom from narrowness §Widening the lens Breadth means designing curriculum in which students extend and connect facts and ideas into a meaningful whole. (p )

How do we ensure depth & breadth? For Depth §Unearth it §Analyze it §Question it §Prove it §Generalize it For Breadth §Connect it §Picture it §Extend it (p. 102)

Depth, Breadth and the 6 Facets of Understanding Facet 1: Explanation §Give students opportunities to build, test and verify theories and explanations. Problem-based learning is a vehicle for this process. (p. 105)

Depth, Breadth and the 6 Facets of Understanding Facet 2: Interpretation §Give students opportunities to build their own interpretations, translations and narratives from primary sources, events and experiences. Oral histories, literary analyses, the case method and Socratic seminars support this facet. (p. 105)

Depth, Breadth and the 6 Facets of Understanding Facet 3: Application §Give students opportunities to apply what they have learned in the classroom to real or realistic situations. Real or simulated tasks, e.g., computer simulations and Odyssey of the Mind, support this facet. (p. 105)

Depth, Breadth and the 6 Facets of Understanding Facet 4: Perspective §Give students opportunities to take multiple points of view on the same issue. Studying the same event through different texts; challenging assumptions, laws or postulates; and role-play are vehicles that support this facet. (p. 105)

Depth, Breadth and the 6 Facets of Understanding Facet 5: Empathy §Give students opportunities to confront a variety of direct experiences, walk in other people’s shoes, and confront their assumptions. To support this facet, give students direct experiences with the ideas in question and have them re-create different characters to simulate past events and attitudes. (p. 105)

Depth, Breadth and the 6 Facets of Understanding Facet 6: Self-Knowledge §Give students opportunities to engage in ongoing self-assessment about what they know and how they know it so that they will make their thinking explicit. To support this facet, make self-assessment and self-adjustment a key part of instruction as well as assessment. (p )

What’s the difference between covering and uncovering? Covering §Teacher presents information §Students read text §Students answer end of chapter questions §Students take unit or teacher-made test §Teacher assesses understanding Uncovering §Teacher assesses students' knowledge of topic §Teacher creates enduring understandings, essential questions, rubrics & activities §Students participate in engaging, meaningful learning activities §Students produce real-world products/projects §Teacher assesses understanding

“No experience is educative that does not tend both to knowledge of more facts and entertaining of more ideas and to a better, a more orderly arrangement of them… Experiences, in order to be educative, must lead out into an expanding world of subject matter… This condition is satisfied only as the educator views teaching and learning as a continuous process of reconstruction of experience.” Dewey, 1938