1. Understanding by Design
An Overview

2. What is Understanding by Design ?
A conceptual foundation based on the six facets of understanding
An instructional design that encompasses big ideas and enduring understanding
A process approach to thinking
An implementation process that involves planning, revising, teaching, assessing, reflecting, and adjusting as needed
Talking Points:
Purposeful, with specific goals
It is not of prescriptive
Robust approach to planning
This process is appropriate for areas where students need deep and sophisticated understanding and are at the appropriate developmental levels. For example, it is not appropriate for skill based learning such as the alphabet, basics in a foreign language, basic computation
Central to the design approach is designing lessons and assessments that anticipate and evoke and overcome student misconceptions

3. The Six Facets of Understanding
Explanation
Interpretation
Application
Perspective
Empathy
Self-Knowledge
Talking Points:
Explanation: Provide thorough, supported and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data.
Interpretation: Tell meaningful stories, offer apt translations, provide historical or personal dimensions to ideas and events; make them personal or accessible through anecdotes, analogies, and models.
Application: Effectively use and adapt what one knows in diverse contexts.
Perspective: Critically see various points of view; see the big picture.
Empathy: Find value in what others might find different or implausible; perceive sensitively based on prior experiences
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 so hard, and of how one comes to understand.

4. Rationale for Understanding by Design
Focuses on goals related to the “big ideas,” enduring understandings, and rigorous performance
Clarifies the desired outcomes and the evidences of learning
Makes assessment central to the curriculum design
Taking Points:
…for both teachers and students
A constant challenge for teachers is that a content focus may not address the questions of why students are completing a particular task, what are the expected learnings?
Students are asked to make meaning of the learning with respect to the big idea or enduring understanding. Engaging in reflection is key to building student understandings.
Assessment is central, not an afterthought.

5. The Backwards Design Process
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
Stage 1: Identify desired results
Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence
Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction

6. Stage1: Identify Desired Results
Established Goals
Identify the relevant goals for this unit
Ensure that goals meet the expectations of content standards, program objectives, and/or learning outcomes

7. Stage1: Identify Desired Results ( continued)
Understanding
Identify “big ideas”
Frame the big ideas as specific understandings
Consider possible misconceptions that students may have and how to address them
Specifically, what do you want students to understand about them?

8. Stage1: Identify Desired Results ( continued)
Essential Questions
Select/develop essential questions to guide inquiry into the big ideas
Align essential questions to the appropriate taxonomic level of the targeted standards and benchmarks

9. Stage1: Identify Desired Results ( continued)
Identify key knowledge and skills…
Knowledge
Students will know…
Key concepts and processes that support the big ideas
Skills
Students will be able to….
Demonstrate their understanding of the acquired knowledge

10. Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence
Types of assessment evidence:
Authentic performance tasks and criteria-based rubrics (for products and performances)
Other evidence (formative and summative, e.g. quizzes, tests, observations, prompted writing, and speaking)
Self-assessment
Goal: to obtain valid, reliable, credible, and useful evidence.
Think like an assessor!
Student assessments focus on applying their knowledge and explaining their thinking (metacognition)

11. Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence (continued)
Key Design Elements
Create evidence based on big understandings, knowledge, and skills
Utilize the 6 facets of understanding
Identify criteria to develop rubric
Use G.R.A.S.P.S. elements to design performance tasks (Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product/Performance and Purpose, and Standards and criteria for success)
Identify other evidence needed
Determining the extent to which the desired goals have been achieved

12. Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction
Create an Effective and Engaging Learning Plan
Know your learning goals, reasons for learning the content, and learning criteria
Engage students with a hook
Provide opportunities to:
Explore big ideas to prepare students for performance task
Rethink, rehearse, revise, and/or refine work based on effective feedback
Evaluate work and set goals
Address interest and learning styles
Goal: to consider the instructional strategies and experiences needed to achieve the desired targets.
Effective feedback is descriptive as well as timely.

13. Stage 3: Planning Experiences and Instruction (continued)
Key Design Elements
Consider what needs to be uncovered vs. covered
Use W.H.E.R.E.T.O.
Where are we going? Why? What is expected?
Hook
Equip students for the performance task
Rethink and Revise
Evaluate (self), and reflect on one’s own leaning
Tailor learning to student needs, interest, and styles
Organize and sequence learning
Use formative and summative assessments
Use 6 facets of understanding to generate new ideas
Test learning plan and ensure alignment to learning targets
Key Design Elements: Developing the Learning Plan
Covered vs. uncovered: Covered refers to the direct instruction of content. Uncovered is what you would have your students “discover” to understand those big ideas and deeper meanings (i.e. discovery learning).

14. Putting it All Together…The UbD Lesson Plan Template

15. Questions?