Understanding by Design (according to Wiggins and McTighe )

1. Understanding by Design(according to Wiggins and McTighe) Backward Planning Part 3 February 2013

3. Stage 1: Identify Desired Results • Enduring Understandings: Big-picture ideas retainable beyond the course. • Essential Questions: Questions that lie at the heart of a subject and promote inquiry and uncoverage of a subject. • Learning Targets: Knowledge, Reasoning, Skill, Product. Deconstruct a content standard into smaller teachable parts. I can…When I’ve learned this…

4. Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence • Do you think like an Assessor? • The Six Facets of Understanding: Explain, Interpret, Apply, Perspective, Empathy, Self-knowledge. • Performance Tasks: GRASPS– Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product-Performance-Purpose, Standards for Success. • Formative Assessments: How will you know that students are moving in the right direction? checking students’ understanding daily? collect data and use it to decide how your instruction will proceed? • TRANSFER of Learning: Ultimate goal. • RUBRICS: Measuring products & performances.

5. Transfer to the “GAME”

6. The goal is for students to be able to transfer their learning!

7. Just because the student knows it… Evidence of understanding is a greater challenge than evidence that the student knows a correct or valid answer. • Understanding is inferred, not seen. • It can only be inferred if we see evidence that the student knows why (it works), so what? (why it matters), how (to apply it).

8. Key Understandings about Assessment The local assessment is direct; the state assessment is indirect (an audit of local work) • It is, therefore, always unwise to merely mimic the state’s assessment approaches. The only way to assess for understanding is via contextualized performance - “applying” in the broadest sense our knowledge and skill, wisely and effectively (i.e. Performance Tasks…) • Performance is more than the sum of the drills; using only conventional quizzes and tests is insufficient and as misleading as relying only on sideline drills to judge athletic performance ability.

9. Consider this:Any assessment design should… • Have clearly articulated criteria • Be valid and reliable • Provide sufficient measure of the desired results • Encourage students to self assess their own learning Rubrics will help to accomplish all of these things.

10. Completing Stage 2: Rubrics How do we measure products and performances? • RUBRICS- (two types) • A holistic rubric provides an overall impression of a student’s work. (single score) • An analytic rubric divides a product/performance into distinct traits or dimension and judges each separately. (e.g. 4 trait writing rubric)

11. RUBRICS to assess learning. • Describe degrees of quality, proficiency, or understanding along a continuum. ANSWER: • What criteria should performance be judged and discriminated? • Where should we look & what should we look for to judge performance success? • How should the different levels of quality, proficiency, or understanding be described & distinguished from one another?

12. Revising a rubric relies on analysis of student performance. • Step 1: Gather samples of student performance that illustrate the desired understanding or proficiency. • Step 2: Sort student work into different ‘stacks’ and write down reasons. • Step 3: Cluster the reasons into traits or important dimensions of performance. • Step 4: Write a definition of each trait. • Step 5: Select examples of student performance that illustrate each score point on each trait. • Step 6: Continuously refine. Students need anchors to understand what “good” looks like.

13. Stage 3:Plan Learning Experiences & Instruction A focus on engaging and effective learning, “designed in” • What learning experiences and instruction will promote the desired understanding, knowledge and skill of Stage 1? • How will the design ensure that all students are maximally engaged and effective at meeting the goals?

14. Essential Questions for Teachers in Stage 3

17. In Stages 2 and 3…Formative Assessment is critical. • Use pre-test or some type of before-teaching assessment (to inform, not grade). • Use to adjust the learning plan as you go. • Allow students to monitor their own learning. • Include a check for mastery in every lesson. • How can you prove that most of your students got it?

18. One Minute Writing(Quick Write) You have one minute to write as much as you can about what you learned today. Don’t worry about the organization – just don’t write IDK or nothing. Truly attempt to say something you have learned.

19. Newspaper Headline Create a newspaper headline that may have been written for the topic we are studying. Capture the main idea of the event.

20. Test Questions • Write two test questions that you think the teacher might put on the test. • Make your two questions be about the most important ideas of the unit.

21. Am I a “10”? • Rate yourself from “1” to “10” (ten being the best) on how well you understand everything we studied today. • Then complete the statements below: One thing that the teacher could do to help me understand things better is… One thing that I do that helps me learn the best is… The great…teachers are the ones who spark you to explore and make your own discoveries, who can guide your learning journey with a touch so subtle you think you're steering the plane yourself. - TamimAnsary

22. Three Misconceptions UbD realizes you may have… • “Yes, but… we have to teach to the test.” 2. “Yes, but... we have too much content to cover.” 3. “Yes, but… this work is too hard and I just don’t have the time.” Can we fix them…

23. Fixing Misconception #1:“Yes, but…we have to teach to the test.” • We must teach for in-depth understanding. • Instructional practice shouldn’t be dictated by test format. • Interactive teaching methods lead to more learning. Questions to ask: • Do we see more “teaching and assessing for understanding” in the worse performing schools? • Do we see students more involved in unoriginal practicing of state tests in the most high-achieving schools?

24. Analogy… Once a year, we go to the doctor for a physical exam. We go with the understanding that it is in our long-term interest to get an objective measure of our health. The physical is a small sample of tests, yielding useful health status indicators. We do this so we can identify signs of trouble demanding further scrutiny. Do we ‘practice’ for this test…? Take our blood pressure over & over etc…? Best way to pass is to live a healthful life on a regular basis.

25. UbD suggestion for teachers… Like the doctor, state education agencies give schools a “checkup” once a year by viewing indirect evidence– state tests– of student intellectual health. A test, like the physical exam, is an audit related to the state standards. Like the physical, the state test provides indicators about the ‘health of our learning’. Promote high quality thinking & tasks in our ‘daily regimen’ of teaching & understanding.

26. Fixing Misconception #2: “Yes, but…we have too much content to cover.” • Your job is to teach the standards and ‘uncover’ them not to just cover content. • Know your standards and stick to them. (Use the textbook as a resource not the syllabus.) • Know that “teaching” implies learning and understanding. “Teaching” is not just talking about it and assigning some work on it. • Really use formative assessment results. (Morecoverage does not equal more learning.)

27. Fixing Misconception #3: “Yes, but…this work is too hard & I just don’t have the time. • Need to work smarter, not harder or more. Realizing a few other misunderstandings: 1)Each teacher, school, district, climbs this mountain alone. 2) Time required comes directly from teaching time. 3) Each standard addressed separately. 4) “Hard & time-consuming” is a bad thing.

28. UNCOVER, not cover the big ideas through ongoing inquiry & discussion. 1) Alone? Collaborate, share. Common Core standards in 46+ states. Don’t reinvent the wheel! 2) Teaching time? Professional Development, In-service, Grade Level & Department time. PLC’s! 3) Standards separate? Big ideas, rich & in-depth, standards addressed simultaneously. Work together! 4) “Hard & time-consuming”? Work should not be construed as extra but essential. Courage to learn with peers. Professional Library!

29. ANALOGY… How many busy educators prepare gourmet meals every evening during the school year? Even the avid cooks among us don’t have the time or energy. But a few times a year, we do engage in more elaborate home dining (e.g. family holiday dinner) that requires more extensive planning, preparation time, and attention to presentation than do typical daily meals.

30. UbD suggestion for teachers… One “GOURMET” unit per year developed, collected, reviewed, and shared. Imagine, then, the resulting school or district curriculum “cookbook” a few years down the road! “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”Helen Keller

31. Your “GOURMET” Unit… • Stage 1 Completed in September (Wisdom Table activities). Enduring Understanding, Essential Questions, Learning Targets. • Stage 2 Completed Nov & Dec (Wisdom Table activities). Performance Task with Formative Assessments. (*Rubrics) • Stage 3 Can be completed NOW. Learning Plan with Activities. Use either the 1-Page Template or 2-Page Template to complete your UbD Backward Planning “Gourmet” Unit. Last page of packet is 1-page Template w/questions as a guide. *Sample 1-Page Templates are in your September 2012 Training Packet. Copies of blank Templates can be picked up today.

32. UbDClosing Thoughts… Regardless of all the things about students, schools, and society that we cannot control, the things that are in our control— design, instruction, giving feedback— can still significantly affect achievement.

33. Have agreatday!Please fill out UbD part 3 Evaluation Form & return to me by tomorrow. Thanks!