UbD Peer Training

1. UbD Peer Training October 10, 2008 Hilary Evans Laura Hilton Bev Moshier Kristie Schmidt Sara Wasley

2. The big ideas of UbD ‘Backward’ Design Plans need to be well aligned to be effective Aimless activity & coverage Understanding: Transfer It is the essence of understanding and the point of schooling Students fail to apply, poor results on tests Understanding: via big ideas that’s how transfer happens, makes learning more connected Learning is fragmented, more difficult, less engaging

3. 2 key ‘understandings’ • You must design ‘backward’ from understanding if you want to achieve understanding ‘by design’ • Without transparent and important priorities - stated as performance, not content - neither teacher nor student can be effective; nor can they make wise decisions when inevitable adjustments have to be made.

4. Goodlad’s Research • "What do students perceive themselves to be learning? We asked [them] to write down the most important thing learned in school subjects...Most commonly students listed a fact or topic... • Noticeably absent were responses implying the realization of having acquired some intellectual power…

5. Learning vs. teaching • Teaching does not cause learning. Successful attempts by the learner to learn and use what they have learned to achieve a goal causes learning.

6. 3 useful Q’s to ask in class as kids work: • What are you doing? • Why are we doing it? • What will it help us be able to understand/do (that matters)?

7. 3 different but inter-connected learning aims • All effective units of study balance these three goals: • Acquisition of knowledge and skill • Ability to make meaning from challenging/puzzling facts, texts, and situations • Transfer of prior learning to new situations

8. Forms of learning • You acquire facts; you figure out what they mean; you transfer your prior learning to new challenges • You acquire a skill; you figure out a good strategy; you apply all your skills to a new task, in context

9. Backward Design: • I want them to learn____[content]__________ so that, in the long run, they will be able, on their own to __________[a long-term desired accomplishment, involving important transfer or extension of learning]

10. Transfer defined and justified • What is ‘transfer of learning’? • ‘Transfer of learning’ is the use of knowledge and skills (acquired in an earlier context) in a new context. It occurs when a person’s learning in one situation influences that person’s learning and performance in other situations. • When transfer of learning occurs, it is in the form of meanings, expectations, generalizations, concepts, or insights that are developed in one learning situation being employed in others • Bigge & Shermis, 1992.

11. How people learn • A major goal of schooling is to prepare students for flexible adaptation to new problems and settings. The ability of students to transfer provides an important index of learning that can help teachers evaluate and improve their instruction. • Students develop flexible understanding of when, where, why, and how to use their knowledge to solve new problems if they learn how to extract underlying principlesand themes from their learning exercises. • - How People Learn, Natl Academy of Sciences

12. The Transfer Question: • What should the student be able to do effectively with a repertoire of knowledge and skill, increasingly on their own, in future tasks at the heart of true expertise? • How, then, will transfer ability be developed over the course of the course?

13. example:getting your driver’s license

14. The transfer goal we are designing backward from: • STAGE 1: Passing the driving test, I.e. you are now modestly competent at driving on your own in real-world conditions, handling key challenges likely to confront you as a driver.

15. Transfer over time: increased – • Autonomy: the student is less and less reliant on teacher-provided scaffolding • Repertoire: the challenge demands greater control over a bigger repertoire • Task difficulty: the required tasks become more and more ‘realistically messy, noisy, complex’ - in contexts

16. Autonomy = ‘gradual release of responsibility’ as in reading • I do, you watch • I do, you help • You do, I help • You do, I watch

17. Note how this goal changes our view of time use! • What will we do to achieve the performance goal - given the very limited time we have? • We do NOT say: sorry, no time for performance-based learning and assessment - there is too much information to cover! • Nor do we make this mistake in the arts, athletics, writing, speaking a language

18. What follows for long-term planning? • Make clear the goal is autonomous performance in context • Students need many formative assessment experiences where they must • increasingly self-prompt, • with fewer and fewer teacher prompts, cues, scaffolds, graphic organizers

19. Repertoire use • The focus is thus on strategy: can the student wisely choose from all available knowledge and skill? • Developing and assessing strategic use of repertoire requires complex tasks - I.e. tasks with student decision-making about various possible approaches & solution paths • “Research shows that transfer is especially difficult when a subject is taught only in a single context.” • How People Learn, Chapter 3

20. Transfer = the real ‘game’ of using content on your own • Applying prior learning to - • a novel and increasingly new and unfamiliar-looking task • An increasingly challenging context & situation (in terms of purpose, audience, dilemmas, “noise” etc.)

21. ‘Drills’ - test items Short-term objective Out of context Discrete, isolated element set up and prompted for initial simplified learning Doesn’t transfer to new situations on its own The ‘game’ - real task The point of the drills In context, with all its messiness and interest value Requires a repertoire, used wisely Not prompted: you judge what to do, when We often confuse the drills with the game

22. ‘Exercise’ Familiar look Reinforce your learning Approach should be obvious 1 or 2 steps, using only a targeted skill ‘plug and chug’ ‘Problem’ Non-routine look Challenge your learning Not clear how to proceed - or even what the right way to frame the problem is Requires drawing wisely upon a repertoire Creative and careful thought required to clarify & frame the problem, check your approach for efficiency & effectiveness We often confuse an exercise with a problem

23. So, what follows for the textbooks? • The textbook CANNOT be the syllabus • It is a limited resource • It almost never focuses on transfer; rather it provides mostly ‘logically’ organized content and drills only

24. So? What follows for local assessment? • “If that is the goal, then local assessments must regularly find out if…” • This is the essence of Backward Design • Marching through the indicators in isolation will not meet these standards, nor prepare students for the transfer demanded. You are confusing ‘indicator’ with the goal.

25. Irony: that’s what the difficult problems on state, AP, IB exams are - TRANSFER problems • Unfamiliar reading passages and writing prompts • Unfamiliar-looking versions of math and science problems • No obvious prompts or ‘clues’ as to which ‘content’ applies (since there is no teacher or textbook ‘heads-up’ available as to what this is about)

26. A big idea, framed as an Essential Question… • Provides a clear priority for teaching and learning of content • Makes clear that the goal is inquiry not passive learning of knowledge • Enhances transfer by making clear the kinds of connections sought to other content studied

27. Transfer based on big ideas permits future learning • “The first object of any act of learning, over and beyond the pleasure it may give, is that it should serve us in the future.... In essence, it consists in learning initially not a skill but a general idea which can then be used as a basis for recognizing subsequent problems.... This type of transfer is at the heart of the educational process-the continual broadening and deepening of knowledge in terms of...ideas.” • Bruner, Process of Education p. 17

28. A ‘big idea’ is a working ‘theory’, ‘schema’ or ‘theme’ • Think of - • the detective - and historian or mathematician - sifting clues to find the best-fit “story” of the facts • The big idea in Watergate, as recounted in All the President’s Men: Follow the Money • Harvard TfU refers to this as the ‘throughline’; we would say: ‘the overarching understanding’

29. Big ideas: 4 examples of useful year-long ‘theories’ • History is written by the winners • The key to solving problems is to make the unfamiliar & complex familiar and manageable. • Re-grouping, factoring and converting - these are all ways of making hard problems simpler, using another big idea - ‘equivalence’ • You need to “converse with” and “Question” thetext and its author, to understand - even if the author is not physically present! • Success in ball games depends upon making unpredictable or confusing moves

30. No big ideas in skill areas? Not so... • “equivalence” is key to problem solving in math • “does it work for this audience and purpose?” in writing • “create space and uncertainty in your opponent” in sports

31. worth being familiar with important to know & do Big ideas & core transfer tasks important knowledge & skill “big ideas” & core transfer tasks at the heart of the subject “nice to know” Toward Valid Curriculum: Focus on Priority outcomes

32. So, how can UbD help?

33. ‘by design’ it addresses the problems • Unprioritized ‘coverage’ & state standards • Aimless activities • No focus on transfer • Drill vs. game focus • Teaching the textbook instead of focus on learning goals

34. How? • Template of questions to change habits • Design tools and resources to re-focus planning • Powerful strategies to prioritize content around big ideas and important tasks, to make learning more engaged, focused, and long-lasting

35. 1. Identify desired accomplishments 2. Determine acceptable evidence 3. Plan learning experiences & instruction KEY: 3 Stages of (“Backward”) Design Then, and only then

36. Without checking for alignment Identify content Brainstorm activities & methods Without checking for alignment Come up with an assessment What we typically (incorrectly) do:

37. Stage 2 - Assessment Evidence Stage 3 - Learning Plan Other Evidence: Other Evidence: Performance Tasks Essential Questions Other Evidence Understandings UBD Template Stage 1 - Desired Results Long-term goals • The Template– • Reflects the logic • Addresses the problem Knowledge & Skills

38. pp. 60 ff. Stage 1 Design Questions • What are the long-term transfer goals? In the end, students should be able, on their own, to... • What are the desired understandings? (What misunderstandings must be avoided, overcome?) • What are the essential questions to be continually explored? • What knowledge & skill should they leave with?

39. Stage 2 Design Questions • What evidence for assessment is required by our Stage 1 goals? • What performances are indicative of understanding - transfer of learning and understanding of content via big ideas? • What other evidence is required by the goals? • What scoring rubrics/criteria/indicators will be used to assess student work against the goals?

40. Stage 3 - design Qs • If those are the desired results in STAGE 1 and the tasks of STAGE 2- • What do they need to acquire? • What inquiries and meaning making must they actively be made to engage in? • What transfer must they practice and get feedback on? • What formative assessments are essential for feedback, adjustment, meeting goals? • What sequence is optimal for engagement and success? • How will the work be differentiated - without sacrificing goals - to optimize success of all?

41. Key Design ‘moves’ • Making content fit under (a few) key questions • Making skills fit under (a few) key transfer goals • Thinking through ‘evidence of understanding’ BEFORE developing (any old) activities & quizzes

42. The big ideas of UbD ‘Backward’ Design Plans need to be well aligned to be effective Aimless activity & coverage Understanding: Transfer It is the essence of understanding and the point of schooling Students fail to apply, poor results on tests Understanding: via big ideas that’s how transfer happens, makes learning more connected Learning is fragmented, more difficult, less engaging