1. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Understanding by Design The backward process of curriculum design Welcome to…

2. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Some initial questions How can teachers promote student understanding more by design than by good fortune? How can teachers move beyond designing mere activities or “coverage? How can teachers know students truly understand?

3. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli What is UbD? UbD is a constructivist framework for the design of instruction created by Jay Mc Tighe and Grant Wiggings. It attempts to answer these questions: –How can we teach and assess for in-depth understanding? –Where might we begin? How can we avoid reinventing the wheel or getting stuck in habits or routine?

4. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli What is understanding? Our understanding about understanding – it is –the insightful use of knowledge and skill, manifest in performance. –revealed via six facets –essential for maximal recall and apt transfer of content to new situations

5. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli The 6 facets of understanding When one truly understands, one explain –Can explain: provide thorough, supported, and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data. interpret –Can interpret: tell meaningful stories; offer apt translations; provide a revealing historical or personal dimension to ideas and events; make them personal or accessible through images, anecdotes, analogies, and models. apply –Can apply: effectively use and adapt what one knows in diverse contexts. perspective –Have perspective: see points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big picture. empathize –Can empathize: find value in what others might find odd, alien, or implausible; perceive sensitively on the basis of prior direct experience. self-knowledge –Have self-knowledge: perceive the personal style, prejudices, projections, and habits of mind that both shape and impede one's own understanding. One is aware of what one does not understand, of why understanding is hard, and of how one comes to understand.

6. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Explanation Definition: Sophisticated and apt explanations and theories, which provide knowledgeable and justified accounts of events, actions, and ideas. –We see something moving, hear a sound unexpectedly, smell an unusual odor, and we ask: What is it?... When we have found out what it signifies, a squirrel running, two persons conversing, an explosion of gunpowder, we say that we understand. —Dewey, 1933, pp. 137, 146 Why is that so? What explains such events? What accounts for such an effect? How can we prove it? To what is this connected? How does this work? What is implied?Why is that so? What explains such events? What accounts for such an effect? How can we prove it? To what is this connected? How does this work? What is implied? –A cook explains why adding a little mustard to oil and vinegar enables them to mix. The mustard acts as an emulsifier. –A 5th grade history student provides a well-supported view of the causes of Artigas’ exodus. –X A 10th grade student knows the facts of the crossing of the Uruguay river by the 33 Patriots but not why it happened and what it led to.

7. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Interpretation Definition: Interpretations, narratives, and translations that provide meaning. –The object of interpretation is understanding, not explanation. Understanding is the outcome of organizing essentially contestable, incompletely verifiable propositions in a disciplined way. One of our principal means for doing so is through narrative: by telling a story of what something is about. But as Kierkegaard had made clear many years before, telling stories in order to understand is no mere enrichment of the mind; without them we are, to use his phrase, reduced to fear and trembling. —Bruner, 1996, p. 90 What does it mean? Why does it matter? What of it? What does it illustrate or illuminate in human experience? How does it relate to me? What makes sense?What does it mean? Why does it matter? What of it? What does it illustrate or illuminate in human experience? How does it relate to me? What makes sense? –A grandfather tells stories about the economic crash of 1930 to illustrate the importance of saving for a rainy day. –An 11th grade student shows how Gulliver's Travels can be read as a satire on British intellectual life. The book is not just a fairy tale. –× A middle school student can translate all the words but does not grasp the meaning of a Spanish sentence.

8. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Application Definition: The ability to use knowledge effectively in new situations and diverse contexts. –[By understanding] I mean simply a sufficient grasp of concepts, principles, or skills so that one can bring them to bear on new problems and situations, deciding in which ways one's present competencies can suffice and in which ways one may require new skills or knowledge. —Gardner, 1991, p. 18 How and where can I use this knowledge, skill, or process? In what ways do people apply this understanding in the world beyond school? How should my thinking and action be modified to meet the demands of this particular situation?How and where can I use this knowledge, skill, or process? In what ways do people apply this understanding in the world beyond school? How should my thinking and action be modified to meet the demands of this particular situation? –A young couple uses their knowledge of economics (e.g., the power of compounded interest and the high cost of credit cards) to develop an effective financial plan for saving and investing. –6th grade students use their knowledge of statistics to accurately project the costs and needs for the end of course trip. –× A physics teacher can't diagnose and fix a broken lamp.

9. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Perspective Definition: Critical and insightful points of view. –An important symptom of an emerging understanding is the capacity to represent a problem in a number of different ways and to approach its solution from varied vantage points; a single, rigid representation is unlikely to suffice. —Gardner, 1991, p. 13 From whose point of view? From which vantage point? What is assumed or tacit that needs to be made explicit and considered? What is justified or warranted? Is there adequate evidence? Is it reasonable? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the idea? Is it plausible? What are its limits? So what?From whose point of view? From which vantage point? What is assumed or tacit that needs to be made explicit and considered? What is justified or warranted? Is there adequate evidence? Is it reasonable? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the idea? Is it plausible? What are its limits? So what? –A 10-year-old girl recognizes the fallacy in TV advertising of using popular figures to promote products. –A student explains the Israeli and Palestinian arguments for and against new settlements on the Gaza Strip. –× A bright but rigid student refuses to consider that there is another way to look at gun control.

10. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Empathy Definition: The ability to get inside another person's feelings and worldview. –"Do women ever come up to you and say, `How did you know that? How did you feel that?'" I ask, and for the first time, he turns and looks at me evenly: –"Yeah, that's the normal response," he says in a voice that suddenly isn't so shy. "It's not that I understand women any better than anyone else, but I do understand feelings.... All you have to do is imagine what that girl is going through, just turn it around and put yourself in those same shoes.... We're all the same people.“ —The singer Babyface, New York Times Sunday Magazine, 1997, Sec. 6, p. 22 How does it seem to you? What do they see that I don't? What do I need to experience if I am to understand? What was the artist or performer feeling, seeing, and trying to make me feel and see?How does it seem to you? What do they see that I don't? What do I need to experience if I am to understand? What was the artist or performer feeling, seeing, and trying to make me feel and see? –A student from the provinces empathizes with one from Montevideo who cannot go out and play as much as he would like to for lack of safety in the streets. –From a recent British national exam: "Romeo and Juliet, act 4. Imagine you are Juliet. Write your thoughts and feelings explaining why you have to take this desperate action." –× An accomplished soccer player-turned-coach often berates his young players because he cannot relate to their struggles in learning the game.

11. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Self-knowledge Definition: The wisdom to know one's ignorance and how one's patterns of thought and action inform as well as prejudice understanding. –All understanding is ultimately self-understanding.... [A] person who understands, understands himself.... Understanding begins when something addresses us. This requires... the fundamental suspension of our own prejudices. —Gadamer, 1994, p. 266 How does who I am shape my views? What are the limits of my understanding? What are my blind spots? What am I prone to misunderstand because of prejudice, habit, or style?How does who I am shape my views? What are the limits of my understanding? What are my blind spots? What am I prone to misunderstand because of prejudice, habit, or style? –A mother realizes that her frustration with her daughter's shyness is rooted in issues from her own childhood. –Mindful of the fact that many students are visual learners, a middle school teacher includes visual organizers and images. –× When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

12. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli “Big Ideas” of UbD 6 facets of understanding “Backward design” – teaching with clarity about needed evidence and results A focus on “big ideas” Anticipate students’ misunderstandings “Uncoverage,” not coverage “Think like an assessor”

13. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Curriculum Audit What knowledge/skills INTERESTING would be INTERESTING? What knowledge/skills USEFUL would be USEFUL? What knowledge/skills is/are ESSENTIAL ESSENTIAL?

14. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli The backward design process Identify desired results Determine acceptable evidence Plan learning Experiences and Instruction

15. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Questions Overarching essential questions: –These questions are designed to mirror your statements of understanding (a) have no right answer (b) raise other important questions (c) go to the heart of a discipline’s philosophical and conceptual foundations and (d) recur naturally Topical essential questions: –Derived from overarching questions they focus upon unit-specific language

16. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Assessment Tools Formal observations Informal observations Interviews Public performances and/or demonstrations Written products Oral products Visual products/displays Exhibits or models Culminating projects Quizzes Tests Student oral self- assessments Think log entries Evaluation log entries Peer review and peer response Evidences in a portfolio

17. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Design Instructional Activities How will you help students know where they are headed and why? How will you hook students through engaging and thought-provoking experiences? What experiences will make understandings real and equip students for final performances? How will you cause students to reflect and rethink? How will you guide students in rehearsing, revising and refining? How will students exhibit their understanding and engage in meaningful self-evaluation? W H E R E

18. Gabriel Díaz Maggioli Understanding by Design… Helps us to design instruction that promotes understanding and student engagement; Is a recursive process, not a prescriptive program or instructional model; Looks at instructional design from a “results” orientation; Provides design tools and templates; Targets achievement through a “backward design” process that focuses on assessment first and relevant instructional activities last; Challenging professional work that requires self-assessment and reflection concerning classroom practice; Expects us to establish spirals of learning where students use and reconsider ideas and skill – vs. a linear scope and sequence; Asks us to think of curriculum in terms of desired “performances of understanding” and then “plan backwards” to identify needed concepts and skills.