Understanding by Design

Understanding by Design Stage One In-Depth Monday, August 29, 2011

Three Minute Review • With your table group, write down everything and anything you know about UbD. • You have three minutes. Go!

Stage One Meaning Transfer Acquisition Essential Questions Understandings Big Ideas Skills Goals Learning

Stage One Overall, Stage One is basically about having a good grasp of what you want your students to… KNOW UNDERSTAND & BE ABLE TO DO.

Stage One • Established Goals • Transfer • Meaning • Understandings • Essential Questions • Acquisition • Knowledge • Skills

Transfer = • What kinds of long-term independent accomplishments are desired? • You truly understand and excel when you can take what you have learned in one way or context and use it in another, on your own. • What do we want students to be able to do in the world beyond school?

Transfer = • Effective application of understandings (inferences, connections, etc.) in new situations. • In the end, what should a learner eventually be able to do with this and similar content that really matters? • The learner grasps the significance of what is learned and can apply it wisely in the future (in other coursework and in life beyond the classroom).

Transfer = • Students recognize what is expected and act appropriately when a related but new challenge presents itself, without teachers reminding them what to do. • Transfer goals should specify desired long-term, genuine accomplishment. • The successful driver, soccer player, historian, or mathematician can size up a new challenge and transfer learning efficiently and effectively. Someone who learned only by rote cannot.

A soccer player may be able to complete drills effectively, but only demonstrates true “transfer” of understandings, knowledge, and skills when he/she can apply them effectively (on his/her own) in the game. • If I help you make better sense of the four types of goals (knowledge, skill, meaning, and transfer), I am working to create “meaning” for you. If I ask you to take that new meaning to design your own set of goals for a given unit, I am working to create “transfer” for you.

Transfer Goal Examples HISTORY: Discuss the applicability of the history they have been learning to current and future events. READING: Read and respond to various types of text through personal connections. MATH: Recognize and solve never-before-seen problems where it’s not clear what the problem is asking or what approach would be appropriate. SCIENCE: Evaluate scientific claims and analyze current issues involving science or technology.

Transfer Goal Examples WRITING: Effectively write in various genres to persuade. HEALTH / P.E.: Make healthful choices and decisions regarding diet, exercise, stress management, alcohol, drug use. PERFORMING ARTS: Create and perform an original work in a selected medium to express ideas and evoke mood/emotion. WORLD LANGUAGE: Communicate effectively in the target language, in various situations with different challenges to understanding (speed, accent, over phone, etc.).

Transfer Goals Require… • Application (not simply recognition or recall) • Application in new situations (not ones previously taught or encountered) • Learners to apply their learning on their own

Driver’s Education Unit

Understandings • An understanding is an idea that results from reflecting on and analyzing one’s learning: • An important generalization • A new insight • A useful realization

An Understanding… • Is NOT a fact, but a “theory” in the broadest sense. • Is a statement students can only “get” after lots of experience and prompted reflection. • Cannot be “covered” but is always “uncovered”. • Is an A-ha! • Has to be owned by the students. Otherwise it is just a lifeless sentence.

Understanding Examples HISTORY: People move for a variety of reasons – for new economic opportunities, greater freedoms, or to flee something. MATH: Mathematics is a language, and over the centuries mathematicians have come to agree on certain conventions, or ways of doing things, so that we can communicate our intentions clearly and efficiently. MUSIC: The foundation of rhythm is pulse (steady beat), which continues through sound and silence. HEALTH / P.E.: A muscle that contracts through its full range of motion will generate greater force.

Understanding Examples FOOD & CONSUMER SCIENCE: The USDA Food Pyramid presents relative, not absolute, guidelines for a balanced diet. LANGUAGE ARTS: Good readers approach a nonfiction text with just the right mix of respect for the author’s argument and skepticism about its truth. VISUAL ARTS: Artists use narrative conventions similar to oral and written storytellers to tell stories.

Essential Questions • Criteria for a Valid Essential Question: • Cause inquiry into core content • Provoke deep thought • Require students to justify and support their ideas • Spark rethinking of big ideas • Create opportunities for transfer • Essential Questions Should NOT: • Have a yes/no answer • Have one, clear-cut answer • Be mentioned once and never referenced again *EQ’s focus a unit and force our students (and us) to think more deeply!!!! (Wiggins 70-73)

Essential Question Examples MUSIC: What is the value of studying music theory? How is music theory used in the real world? SOCIAL STUDIES: What is worth fighting for? Who decides? How should governments balance the rights of individuals with the common good? ART: What can the artworks tell us about a culture or society? Do artists have a responsibility to their audiences? HEALTH / P.E.: How can a diet be healthy for one person and not another? What is healthful living?

Essential Question Examples SCIENCE: How should we evaluate a scientific claim? How can we best measure what we can not directly see? MATH: How accurate does this need to be? How does what we measure influence how we measure? LANGUAGE ARTS: How are the stories from other places and times about me? Have we run across this idea before? FOREIGN LANGUAGE: How can I sound more like a native speaker? How can I explore and describe cultures without stereotyping them?

Nonessential Questions • When did the Civil War occur? • How do you convert a decimal to a percentage? • Can you find an example of conflict in the story? • What are the steps of the Scientific Method? • How does the body turn food into energy? • Why does the future tense matter?

Tips for Using EQ’s • Less is More • Kid Language • Post Them • Connect

Knowledge Facts Declarative in nature Straightforward Accepted “truths” Do not transfer

Knowledge • What we want students to know: • Vocabulary • Definitions • Key factual information • Formulas • Critical details • Important events • Sequence and timelines

Knowledge Examples MUSIC: Not all sounds have a beat P.E.: Rules of the game SOCIAL STUDIES: Key facts about the westward movement and pioneer life on the prairie LITERATURE: The plot, setting and main characters in the novel The Catcher in the Rye MATH: The commutative property and to which operation it applies (and when it does not apply)

Skills • Procedural • Simple and discrete • Step toward your goal • Limited transfer

Skills • What we want students to be able to do: • Basic skills (decoding, arithmetic) • Communication skills (listening, speaking, writing • Thinking Skills (compare, infer, analyze, interpret) • Research skills • Study skills • Group skills

Skills Examples MUSIC: Demonstrate a steady beat individually or in a small group. P.E.: Execute the golf swing so the ball takes flight. SOCIAL STUDIES: Using research skills (with guidance) to find out about life on the wagon trail and prairie. LITERATURE: Using interpretive / inferential reading strategies to better analyze literature on their own. MATH: Using the convention of “order of operations” to perform calculations and simplify algebraic equations.

Table Activity

Exit Card Please use a note card on your table to write down a question, comment or concern you have about Stage One.

Understanding by Design