UbD: Why, What and How

Moffat County SchoolsEric Carbaugh

carbauem@jmu.edu

The Why

The “Twin Sins” of Design

►“Activity- Focused Teaching”

►Fluff and fun; no substance

►Making a brochure!

• “Coverage- Focused Teaching”

• Systematically mowing over acres of facts/skills

• Substance without meaning/affinity

• Test review!

4

Identify content

Brainstorm activities & methods

Come up with an assessment

What we typically do:

Without checking for alignment

Without checking for alignment

High Quality Curriculum• Clear goals are essential for the brain to know what to process.• The brain is not well designed for memorizing data. It needs to work with

patterns, connections, meaning, and significances. “Curriculum races aren’t very brain friendly.”

• Time for reflection and practice are necessary for short term and sensory memory to make it to long-term storage.

• If students see relationships, they are more likely to get things into long term memory.

• Sense (what is it?) and meaning (is it relevant to me) are important to see patterns. One well done task that meets these criteria is going to do a lot more for us than two days of “coverage.” Also keep in mind that sense and meaning are highly individual.

• Student imagination, spirit, and curiosity should be encouraged.• Remedial classrooms are a poor learning environment.

Tomlinson and Sousa, 2010

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The WhatUnderstanding by Design:Backward Design

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worth being familiar with

important toknow & do

Big ideas

Stage 1: Establishing Priorities around “Big Ideas”

“big ideas”worthexploring and understanding in depth40 years

foundational knowledge & skill4 years

”nice to know”4 weeks

See pages 78-80

1. Identify desire results

2. Determine acceptable evidence

3. Plan learning experiences & instruction

KEY: 3 Stages of (“Backward”) Design

The How

• Communicate openly so that you feel supported. This is both a top down and bottom up initiative, so it’s important that everyone communicates with each other.

• Initial training for teacher leaders and administrators on August 7th and 8th, 2012

• Overview for all teachers August 22nd and 23rd, 2012• Utilize PLC time to help build capacity• Needs driven, access to related training (assessment,

instruction, management, etc.)