1. Understanding By Design Introduction September 17th , 2009
Office of Learning and Support Services

2. I can’t hear him whistling.
I taught spot to whistle.
I said I taught him. I didn’t say he learned it!
I can’t hear him whistling.
Survey

3. ABC Brainstorming Working with a partner, brainstorm and write down any background knowledge you have about instructional planning or lesson planning. You must write information that corresponds to the specific letter and your goal is to brainstorm the entire alphabet.
ABC
Sheet

4. You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.
Yogi Berra

5. Understanding By Design Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe
is not a prescriptive, lock- step program or curriculum.
Understanding by Design
is a conceptual framework, design process and template, and
an accompanying set of design standards.
Understanding by Design
is a methodology to design or redesign any curriculum to
increase student understanding.

6. 3 Stages of (“Backward”) Design
1. Identify desired results
2. Determine acceptable evidence
3. Plan learning experiences
& instruction

7. The blueprints and plans are to building a house as Understanding by Design is to teaching.
-Think-Pair-Share

8. Putting It Together WP 1 Understanding By Design Process 1.
Identify the desired results by selecting the appropriate Standards
Enduring Understanding
Essential Questions 2.
Determine the Acceptable Evidence
6 Facets of Understanding
Performance Tack
Other Assessments 3.
Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction using the WHERETO Format
WP 1

9. The Big Picture of a Design Approach
Key Design Question
Design Considerations
Filters (Design Criteria)
What the Final Design Accomplishes
Stage 1. What is worthy and requiring of understanding?
National Standards.
State standards.
District standards.
Regional topic opportunities.
Teacher expertise and interest.
Enduring ideas.
Opportunities for authentic, discipline-based work.
Uncoverage.
Engaging.
Unit framed around enduring understandings and essential questions.
Stage 2. What is evidence of understanding?
Six facets of understanding.
Continuum of assessment types.
Valid.
Reliable.
Sufficient.
Authentic work.
Feasible.
Student friendly.
Unit anchored in credible and educationally vital evidence of the desired understandings.
Stage 3. What learning experiences and teaching promote understanding, interest, and excellence?
Research-based repertoire of learning and teaching strategies.
Essential and enabling knowledge and skill.
WHERETO
Where is it going?
Hook the students.
Explore and equip.
Rethink and revise.
Exhibit and evaluate.
Tailor
Organize
Coherent learning experiences and teaching that will evoke and develop the desired understandings, promote interest, and make excellent performance more likely.
Figure 1.6
(1st Edition)
The Big Picture of a Design Approach
p.34 (2nd Ed.)

10. Curricular Priorities and Assessments
Worth Being Familiar With
Important to Know and Do
“Enduring” Understanding
Assessment Types
Traditional quizzes and tests
Paper/pencil
Selected-response
Constructed-response
Performance tasks and projects
Open-ended
Complex
authentic
Figures 1.5 – UbD book

11. “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)

12. You’ve got to go
below the surface...

13. to uncover the
really ‘big ideas.’

14. 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? ISBE/ACT College Readiness WP 1

15. The “big idea” of Stage 1:
There is a clear focus in the unit on the big ideas
Implications:
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
WP 1

16. From Big Ideas to Understandings about them
An understanding is a “moral of the story” about the big ideas
What specific insights will students take away about the meaning of ‘content’ via big ideas?
Understandings summarize the desired insights we want students to realize
p. 128, 131 (2nd Ed.)

17. Design Tool with Prompts
What essential questions are raised by this idea or topic?
What, specifically, about the idea or topic do you want students to come to understand?
Why study ___? So what?
What makes the study of ___ universal?
What’s the Big Idea implied in the skill or process of ___?
What is a real-world insight about ___?
What is the value of studying ___?
Essential Questions:
Understandings:
p. 136 (2nd Ed.)

18. Knowledge vs. Understanding
The facts
A body of coherent facts
Verifiable claims
Right or wrong
I know something to be true
I respond on cue with what I know
The meaning of the facts
The “theory” that provides coherence and meaning to those facts
Fallible, in-process theories
A matter of degree or sophistication
I understand why it is, what makes it knowledge
I judge when to and when not to use what I know

19. Integrating the Six Facets of Understanding
Explain
Self
Knowledge
Interpret
UNDERSTANDING
Empathize
Apply
Perspective

20. 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
A key design strategy for engaging student inquiry, uncovering subtle ideas, and developing understanding is to build curriculum around the kinds of questions that gave rise to the content knowledge in the first place. Such questions help in designing a curriculum that is more coherent, making the student’s role more inquisitive and in focusing the teacher’s priorities. Wiggins and McTighe suggest that students who have complete and mature understandings are able to explain, interpret and apply concepts while showing insight from perspective, empathy and self-knowledge. While generating possible essential questions, it is helpful to take these facets into consideration.

21. Uncoverage vs. Coverage
Don’t just learn about a subject, but experience directly.
“Students have to do the subject, not just learn its results.”

22. Essential Questions 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?
p (2nd Ed.)
p. 116 (2nd Ed.)

23. Putting It Together WP 1 Understanding By Design Process 1.
Identify the desired results by selecting the appropriate Standards
Develop the Topic
Enduring Understanding
Essential Questions
WP 1

24. Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence
Template fields ask:
What are key complex performance tasks indicative of understanding?
What other evidence will be collected to build the case for understanding, knowledge, and skill?
What rubrics will be used to assess complex performance?
WP 1

25. The big idea for Stage 2 Implications: the assessments should –
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)

26. 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

27. Assessment of Understanding via the 6 facets
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

28. Scenarios for Authentic Tasks
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

29. Putting It Together 2. Determine the Acceptable Evidence
6 Facets of Understanding
Performance Task
Other Assessments
WP 1

30. Stage 3 big idea: E F C T I V E N
G A G IN G
and

31. 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?
WP 1

32. Think of your obligations via W. H. E. R. E. T. O.
“Where are we headed?” (the student’s 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
WP 1

33. Putting It Together 3.
Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction using the WHERETO Format
Where
Rethink, rehearse, refine and revise?
Hook
Evaluate
Organized
Equip, Experience
and
Explore
Tailored
(Differentiate)
WP 1

34. The “big ideas” of each stage:
Process
And Skills
Assessment Evidence
Learning
Activities
Understandings Essential Questions s t a g e 2 3
Standard(s): 1
Performance T
ask(s):
Other Evidence:
Content Knowledge
Other Evidence
GRASPS
Purpose:
Unpack the content standards and ‘content’, focus on big ideas
What are the big ideas?
Analyze multiple sources of evidence, aligned with Stage 1
What’s the evidence?
Derive the
implied learning from Stages 1 & 2
W.H.E.R.E.T.O
How will we get there?
WP 3
WP 3

35. WP 2

36. Helpful Online Resources