Curricular Unit Development - Understanding by Design

Curricular Unit DevelopmentDelia DeCourcyOakland SchoolsNovember 14, 2013

Identify Desired Results

Determine Evidence

of Learning

Plan Instructio

n

Good Morning!

wlela.wikispaces.com

Goals for TodayDevelop a

shared language for designing curriculum

Explore a design process informed by UbD

Make significant headway on framing a fiction/nonfiction unit

Share progress on the work

Today’s Schedule

7:15-7:30 UbD/Essential Questions

7:30-8:15 Structuring Unit Development

8:15-9:45 Collaborative Work Time

9:45-10:15 Sharing the Work

Understanding by Design

Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe

Unit Design Work: Intellectual GPS Identify specific learning

destination Instructional path becomes

more clear

Understanding By Design

Big ideas – the knowledge Transfer Learning – authentic

performance/task Focus: long term results Not just covering materialTeachers

Coaches of understanding Check for meaning making & transfer

Designing with the end in mind

Designing with the End in Mind

To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.

- Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective

People

Design TemplateShared language collaboration

Uniformity of format audience

Clear Framework implementation

Backwards Design - Stages

1. Identify Desired Results

2. Determine Acceptable Evidence of Learning

3. Plan Learning Experience & Instruction Accordingly

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Stage 1: Identify Desired Results

“If you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will get you there.”

Focus on Students’ output not teacher input

Students’ ability to make use of what is learned


Revisiting Essential Questions Essential Questions have no one obvious right

answer.

They uncover, rather than cover up a subject’s controversies, puzzles and perspectives.

Essential Questions address the philosophical or conceptual foundations of a discipline.

Essential Questions are framed to provoke and sustain student interest.


Entry Point = Key Text

Why are we having our students read this text?

What makes this text great literature?

What specific lessons or ideas does it have to offer?


The Love Unit What is romantic love? What is Shakespeare’s take on romantic love? How do ideas about and depictions of romantic love

differ across texts and time? How have they remained the same?

Take Away/Intellectual End:I want students to understand that there are multiple definitions of romantic love and ways that these definitions have been represented across texts, within a text (Shakespeare), and across time and cultures. But there are also ideas about and depictions of romantic love that remain consistent.


Guidelines for Essential Questions

Questions should lead to larger essential unit ideas.

Questions should be framed for maximal

simplicity.

Questions should be worded in student-friendly language.

Questions should provoke discussion.


Turn & Talk

Does your unit’s essential questions do all those things?

How might you revise or tweak your questions?

Why are we having our students read this text?


Revisit Supporting Texts How do they support the essential

questions?

TURN & TALK

Assess where you are with finding effective supporting texts.

Key ConceptsWhat do we want students to understand deeply and be able to apply?

CONTENT romantic love forbidden love iambic

pentameter sonnet form figurative

language puns

SKILLS performing a multi-draft read summarizing key events identifying and analyzing the

development of a theme reading and analyzing across

multiple texts visual analysis identifying text features in a

nonfiction text identifying audience and

purpose in a nonfiction text


STOP & JOTWhich concepts (content & skills) do you think are most critical to this unit?


The Standards Which standards are crucial? Where am I in the year? What skills can I build on? What skills need to be reinforced? What skills need to be introduced?

Reading - Informational Reading - Narrative Writing Speaking & Listening Language


Stage 2: Evidence of Learning

In this task, students independently recognize, apply, explain….

What exactly are you assessing for?

Could students do the proposed assessment well but not truly have mastered or understood the content or skills?

Evidence of Learning

Summative Assessment Design

How can students apply and transfer their learning? (new scenario)

Do not focus on medium first! (essay, speech, website)

What is evidence of their Understanding of content?Mastery of a skill?


STOP & JOT• At the end of this unit, what do

students need to be able to recognize, apply, or explain?

• What skills do they need to demonstrate mastery of?


The Love Unit: Summative Assessment

Description: a presentation that examines the depiction of romantic love across multiple texts, through time and across cultures. Use studied and self-selected texts Identify patterns of representation Provide textual and visual evidence to

support claims


TURN & TALKBased on you Stop & Jot, what are your ideas for the summative assessment?


ALIGNMENT: Does the summative assessment address the essential questions & reflect the concepts (content & skills) focused on?

Pre-Unit Assessment Task1. Students read a Shakespearean sonnet

as well as an advertisement that addresses a related theme from the sonnet.

2. They write a summary of each text then write an analysis of the connections between the two texts.

3. Skills assessed: close reading of text, visual analysis, reading and analyzing across multiple texts.


Mid-Unit Formative Assessment Task1. Students read Act 3, scene 2 of Romeo

& Juliet and watch both film versions.2. They then summarize the key events

and ideas of the scene.3. Next, they engage in a Socratic seminar

about the importance of this scene to the development of the romantic love theme and the similarities and differences between the films’ interpretations.


Stage 3: Learning Targets

Otherwise known as Objective Teaching Point

Include Content & Skill What students will KNOW and BE ABLE

TO DO Student-friendly language

Plan Learning Experience

The Love Unit – Learning Target(Act 1, scene 2) Students will

analyze the role of romantic love in a culture where arranged marriage is the norm and how this affects characters’ motivation and behavior.

Plan Learning Experience

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Check alignment of all 3 stages

Collaborative Work

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Sharing the Work: Spokesperson

Essential Questions

TextsConceptsSummative

Assessment Task

VictoriesChallenges

Education

Curricular Unit Development - Understanding by Design