Understanding by Design… Curriculum Mapping Process

1. The Big Ideas Behind UbD Understanding by Design…Curriculum Mapping Process West Jefferson Hills School District Monday, January 9, 2011

2. Today’s Objectives: • To develop a common vocabulary and format for the curriculum mapping process • To review the rationale for Backwards Design and Understanding by Design methodology • To connect the curriculum mapping process and products with OnHandSchools, EdInsight Curriculum Manager tools • To plan for next steps

3. Getting into the “zone” • Kids today • Important knowledge today • Making connections • Curriculum writing • Textbook teaching

4. District Mission ‍ Students are the primary focus of the West Jefferson Hills School District where, in partnership with families and community, the mission is to educate and prepare all students to become active, contributing members of society by providing a challenging, innovative educational program guided by an exceptional staff in a safe, positive, caring environment, all of which promote excellence.

5. Traditional Approach…Starts with teacher inputs What material must be covered”? What activities will be incorporated into the lesson? What homework will be assigned? What questions should be on the test?

6. Begin 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 R. Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

7. Understanding by Design (UbD) • groundbreaking, but commonsense approach to building curriculum, instruction and assessment. • framework for designing curriculum units, performance assessments and instruction that lead students to deep understanding of the content taught • expands on "six facets of understanding", which include students being able to explain, interpret, apply, have perspective, empathize, and have self-knowledge about a given topic

8. Backwards Design Approach…Non-Traditional Approach Starts with student outputs • What enduring understandings in this content area should students master? • How will students demonstrate their degree of mastery? • What instructional strategies & learning experiences must be provided so that students will be able to demonstrate what they know and are able to do?

9. UbD Researchers: Jay McTighe & Grant Wiggins Understanding by Design: Professional Development Workbook. Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins. ASCD: Alexandria VA. 2004

10. 3 Stages of UbD: Overview • 1. Desired Results • Standards • Big Ideas/Enduring Understandings • Essential Questions • Knowledge & Skills • Bloom’s Taxonomy • Webb’s Depth of Knowledge • 2. Evidence • Performance Assessment Design • G.R.A.S.P. • 3. Learning Plan • Lesson Plans • Lesson Topic • Concepts • Competencies • Instructional Procedures • Formative Assessments • Lesson Materials • Homework Assignment • W.H.E.R.E.T.O.

11. 3 Stages of Backward Design 1. Desired results • What content is worthy ? 2. Evidence • What is the evidence needed to determine the extent to which students have achieved the desired results in Stage 1? 3. Learning Plan • What are the instructional strategies & learning experiences needed to achieve the results in Stage 1 as reflected in the assessment evidence gathered in Stage 2?

12. Stage 1: Desired Results #1

13. Stage 1: Desired ResultsWhat content is worthy? • What are the relevant Standards? • What Big Ideas do we want students to come to understand? • What Essential Questions will stimulate inquiry among students? • What Knowledge & Skills must students demonstrate?

14. Academic Standards Core Content Standards: national, state, local or professional standards; course or program objectives or district learner outcomes • PA Academic Standards www.pdesas.org • Common Core Standards www.corestandards.org/ • Professional Organization Standards: • NCTE www.ncte.org/ • NCTM www.nctm.org/ • NCSS www.socialstudies.org/ • ACTFLwww.actfl.org/ • NSTA www.nsta.org/ • NBEAwww.nbea.org/ • AAFFCSwww.aafcs.org/ • AAHPERD www.aahperd.org/naspe/ • MENC www.menc.org/ • Local School District Program or Course Goals & Objectives

15. Stage 1: Desired ResultsWhat content is worthy? Decide on the entire range of possible content matter: all topics, skills & resources available for study Worth being familiar with Important to know and do “Big Ideas” Enduring Understandings

16. Stage 1: Desired ResultsWhat content is worthy? Worth being familiar with Focus the choices to specify the important knowledge and skills that students must have Important to know and do “Big Ideas” Enduring Understandings

17. Stage 1: Desired ResultsWhat content is worthy? Worth being familiar with Important to know and do Select the Big Ideas and enduring understandings that students must retain beyond the details they studied. Big Ideas Enduring Understandings

18. Structure of Knowledge Big Ideas

19. 6 Facets of Understanding • 1. Explain • Provide thorough, supported and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts and data • 2. Interpret • Tell meaningful stories, offer apt translations, provide revealing historical or personal dimension to ideas & events, make it personal or accessible through images, anecdotes, analogies and models • 3. Apply • Effectively use and adapt what is already known into diverse contexts ~ Adapted from the Work and Wisdom of Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe, UbD, 2002

20. 6 Facets of Understanding • 4. Perspective • Can see & hear points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big picture • 5. Empathize • Find value in what others might find odd, alien or implausible; perceive sensitively on the basis of prior or direct experience • 6. Self-Knowledge • Perceive one’s own personal style, prejudices, projections & habits of mind that both shape and impeded new understanding; having an awareness of what one does not understand and why the understanding is so difficult ~ Adapted from the Work and Wisdom of Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe, UbD, 2002

21. Resource: www.pdesas.org • Visit the PDE Standards Aligned System website to find examples of Big Ideas related to your specific content area and/or course • Check out the Common Core Standards for additional ideas.

22. Big IdeasEnduring Understandings • Concepts • Themes • Issues or Debates • Problems or Challenges • Processes • Theories • Paradoxes • Assumptions or Perspectives

23. Big IdeasEnduring Understandings • State in full sentences • Specify what students must understand about the Big Ideas

24. Big IdeasEnduring Understandings: English/Language Arts • Novelists often provide insights about human experience and inner life through fictional means. • Writers use a variety of stylistic techniques to engage and persuade their readers. • Reading involves making sense of the text, not just decoding the words.

25. Big IdeasEnduring Understandings: Social Studies • Some wars are considered “just” wars because people believe they must confront an evil enemy. • History is a “story” and who tells the story affects how it is presented. • There is rarely a single, obvious cause to a complex historical event.

26. Big IdeasEnduring Understandings: Mathematics • Statistics can represent or model complex phenomena. • Any number, measure, numerical expression, algebraic expression, or equation can be represented in an infinite number of ways that have the same value. • Relationships between quantities can be represented by graphs, tables and equations.

27. Big IdeasEnduring Understandings: Other Subject Area • Proper posture and breath control contribute to good vocal tone. • Healthy nutrition practices influence all aspects of our lives. • All life is interrelated as evidenced by the differences and similarities among species. • Words are power.

28. Big IdeasEnduring Understandings: Various Subject Area • Drafting is a form of visual language. • The essence of photography is capturing light. • Form follows function. • You are what you eat. • Art is the first language.

29. Big IdeasEnduring Understandings: Various Subject Area • Accounting is the language of business. • Power is distributed and manifested cross-culturally. • Statistical relationships do not imply causation. • Nonfiction texts always depict truth. • History is written by the victors.

30. Resource: www.pdesas.org • Visit the PDE Standards Aligned System website to find examples of Essential Questions related to your specific content area and/or course • Check out the Common Core Standards for additional ideas.

31. Essential Questions • Are open-ended, provocative questions that have no simple “right” answers • Stimulate, guide and sustain student inquiry while focusing on learning and performance • Focus instruction on uncovering the important ideas of the content • Raise other important questions

32. Essential QuestionsVarious Subject Areas • Why study________? So what? • What makes the study of ______universal? • If the unit on _______ is a story, what is the moral of the story? • What larger concept, issue or problem underlies __________? • What couldn’t we do if we didn’t understand ______?

33. Essential QuestionsVarious Subject Areas • How can mathematics help us decide grading, voting, ranking? • What do good readers do? • How do we read between the lines? • Who are my true friends and how do I know? • Why would a brother kill a brother? • In what ways are the effects of the Civil War still with us?

34. Essential QuestionsVarious Subject Areas • What distinguishes a fluent foreigner from a native speaker? • What makes places unique & different? • How should we balance individual rights with the common good? • How can a diet be healthy for one person and not another?

35. Essential QuestionsVarious Subject Areas • What is a number? Why do we have numbers? What if we didn’t have numbers? • Where do artists get their ideas? • How does art reflect as well as shape culture? • What determines value? • How are form and function related in biology?

36. Knowledge & Skills • What should students know and be able to do? • Discrete cognitive, knowledge-based student objectives • Discrete affective, attitude-based student objectives • Discrete psychomotor, performance-based student objectives

37. Knowledge & Skills • Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy • Discrete affective, attitude-based student objectives • Discrete psychomotor, performance-based student objectives Benjamin Bloom 1913-1999

38. Bloom’s Taxonomy

39. Bloom’s Taxonomy

40. Bloom’s Taxonomy

41. Bloom’s Taxonomy

42. Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Norman L. Webb Senior research scientist with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the National Institute for Science Education. Webb is a mathematics educator and evaluator who leads the Institute's work on strategies for evaluating systemic reform and rethinking how we evaluate mathematics and science education, while focusing on the NSF's Systemic Initiatives reform movement. His own research has focused on assessment of students' knowledge of mathematics. Webb also directs evaluations of curriculum and professional development projects. 

43. Stage 2: Evidence #2

44. Stage 2: EvidenceWhat is the evidence needed to determine the extent to which students have achieved the desired results in Stage 1? • What are the various types of assessments? • Summative • Formative • Benchmark • Diagnostic • When are each of the types of assessments used? • Why are each of the types of assessments used?

45. Stage 2: EvidenceWhat is the evidence needed to determine the extent to which students have achieved the desired results in Stage 1? • Students should be presumed innocent of understanding until proven guilty by a preponderance of evidence. • Obtain valid, reliable, credible and useful evidence of student learning through: • Performance Tasks • A performance task is a goal-directed assessment exercise. It consists of an activity or assignment that is completed by the student and then judged by the teacher or other evaluator on the basis of specific performance criteria • Rubrics • A rubric is a scoring tool that teachers use to assess student learning after a lesson. Using a set of criteria and standards (directly tied to the stated learning objectives), educators can assess each student's performance on a wide variety of work, ranging from written essays to class projects. • Self-Assessments • The ability of students to observe, analyze, and judge their own performance on the basis of criteria and determine how they can improve it

46. Stage 2: EvidenceWhat is the evidence needed to determine the extent to which students have achieved the desired results in Stage 1? • Album vs. Snapshot of Student Learning requires collecting diverse evidence from a variety of summative, formative, benchmark and diagnostic assessments • Informal checking for understanding • Observations & Conversations • Tests and quizzes • Questions & Discussions • Performance Tasks

47. Performance Assessment Design • GOAL: Provide a statement of the task. Establish the goal, problem, challenge, or obstacle in the task. • ROLE: Define the role of the students in the task. State the job of the students for the task. • AUDIENCE: Identify the target audience within the context of the scenario. Example audiences might include a client or committee. • SITUATION: Set the context of the scenario. Explain the situation. • PRODUCT: Clarify what the students will create and why they will create it. • STANDARDS , CRITERIA, INDICATORS: Provide students with a clear picture of success. Identify specific standards for success. Issue rubrics to the students or develop them with the students.

48. Stage 2: Evidence Traditional paper & pencil quizzes, tests: selected response, multiple choice, true/false, matching, short answer. Worth being familiar with Important to know and do Performance tasks and projects that are open-ended, complex, authentic and representative of real life situation. “Big Ideas” Enduring Understandings

49. The Teacher • Establishes Big Ideas & Essential Questions • States performance requirements • Identifies evaluative criteria • Creates hooks & holds to engage students • Implements variety of strategies & resources • Facilitates student learning • Incorporates 6 Facets of Understanding • Uses questioning, probing and feedback • Teaches basic knowledge & skills in context of Big Ideas and Essential Questions • Uses data derived from formative assessments

50. The Learners • Describe Standards & performance requirements • Explain what they are doing & why they are doing it • Are hooked & consistently engaged in learning • Describe the criteria, rubric, by which their work will be evaluated • Demonstrate learning through performance • Generate relevant, thought-provoking questions • Able to explain & justify their own work • Engage in self & peer assessment practices • Use the criteria, rubric, to self-assess their work • Set relevant goals and track own achievement