Monday

July 31, 2023

Understanding by Design

BestPrep Technology Integration Workshop 2022

Goals of the Unit Plan

• Content is linked to Minnesota Academic Standards�
• Content is linked to the ISTE Standards

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• Emphasis of the unit is focused on student understanding

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Goals of the Unit Plan

• Essential questions drive the content, assessments, and instruction�
• An array of assessments is used to determine the extent of student understanding�
• Efficient and effective use of technology is part of the student learning

Visit BestPrep’s Electronic Lesson Library for samples in fifteen different subjects.

Complete your unit/ lesson plan and supplements by Thursday at 12:00 p.m.

Your mission for the week:

What is Understanding by Design?

The process of “backwards design”

• Identify desired results: �What is worthy of student understanding?
• Determine acceptable evidence: �How will students demonstrate their understanding?
• Plan learning experiences, lessons, and instruction: �What will students do and experience to achieve the desired results?

Understanding by Design Resources

• Understanding by Design book by �Grant Wiggens and Jay McTighe

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Digital Resources

• The TIW website has even more resources to support the Curriculum Guide.

“To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination.  It means to know where you are 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 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

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UbD vs Traditional Planning

Stages of UbD

• Stage 1 – Identify Desired Results�Establishing what is to be learned.
• Stage 2 – Determine Acceptable Evidence.�Determine how the learning is accomplished.
• Stage 3 – Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction. �Develop the COOL learning activities.

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Think of ways to integrate technology!

Stage 1:�Identify Desired Results

Establishing what is to be learned.

Start the Unit Plan Template

• Unit Title
• Grade Level
• Subject Area
• Duration
• Description

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Download the Unit Plan Template.

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Established Goals

Complete Established Goals Box

Enduring Understandings

Unit/Lesson Plan Template�

Enduring Understandings

Why is this topic worth studying?

Enduring Understandings

They are the concepts that:

• have lasting value beyond the classroom
• will be retained after the details have been forgotten
• reside at the heart of the discipline
• uncover the concept by “doing” the subject
• offer potential for engaging students

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Enduring Understandings

Should…

• Use complete sentences
• Specify something to be understood
• Focus on big ideas that are abstract and transferable
• Have the understanding be uncovered, because it is abstract and not immediately obvious

Should Not…

• Refer to big ideas, but offer no specific claims
• Simply state straightforward facts, inquiry is required
• Fail to specify what we want the learner to understand
• Refer to a set of skills, but should offer transferable strategies or principles

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Enduring Understandings Filters

Sample Enduring Understandings

• Writing from another person’s point of view can help us to better understand the world, ourselves, and others.
• Sometimes a correct mathematical answer is not the best solution to messy, “real-world” problems.
• Cultural customs in the Hispanic countries regarding interactions between individuals determine if conversation is formal and informal.

Facets of Understanding

Understanding by Design presents a multifaceted view of what comprises mature understanding. Six interrelated abilities cover the range of understanding behaviors students may exhibit.

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• Explanation
• Interpretation
• Application
• Analysis of Perspectives
• Empathy
• Self-Knowledge

For Tuesday:�Complete Your Enduring Understandings

• Write the “Enduring Understandings” students should achieve in the unit.
• Make sure they pass the filters!

Essential Questions

Essential Questions

Stimulate student thinking, provoke inquiry, and spark more questions.

Essential Questions

• Point to the heart of the discipline
• Recur naturally
• Raise other important questions
• Provide subject- and topic- specific doorways to enduring understandings
• Have no obvious “right” answer
• Are deliberately framed to provoke and sustain student interest

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Tips for Writing Essential Questions

• Organize programs, courses, units of study, and lessons around the questions.
• Select or design assessment tasks that are explicitly linked to the questions.
• Edit the questions to make them as engaging and provocative as possible for the particular age group.
• Derive and design specific concrete exploratory activities and inquiries for each question.

Writing Essential Questions

Start your questions with:

• Why…? (cause/effect)
• How…? (process)
• To what extent…? (matters of degree or kind)

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Avoid starting your questions with:

• “What…?”

Sample Essential Questions

Overarching

• How do effective writers hook and hold their readers?
• Is history the story told by the “winners”?
• Does art have a message?

Topical

• How is the mystery genre unique?
• Does separation of powers create a deadlock?
• How do the structure and behavior of insects enable them to survive?

For Tuesday:�Complete Your Essential Questions

• Write the “Essential Questions” that point toward the big ideas and the enduring understandings in your unit.

Tuesday

August 1, 2023

Review Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions

• Write the “Enduring Understandings” students should achieve in the unit.
• Write the “Essential Questions” that point toward the big ideas and the enduring understandings in your unit.

Knowledge and Skills

Knowledge and Skills

Knowledge is what learners will know.

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Skills are what learners will be able to do.

Key Knowledge �and Skills

• Vocabulary
• Terminology
• Definitions
• Key factual information
• Formulas
• Critical details
• Important events and people
• Sequence and timelines

• Basic skills
• Communication skills
• Thinking skills
• Research, inquiry, investigation skills
• Study skills
• Interpersonal, group skills
• Technology skills

Add Knowledge and Skills

• Record those important pieces that are related to the unit plan that are foundational knowledge and skills discovered as you identify the essential questions and enduring understandings.

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Stage 2:�Determine Acceptable Evidence

Determine how the learning is accomplished.

Evidence of Understanding

• Once we know what we are going to teach (Stage 1) we need to avoid jumping to how to teach it (Stage 3).�
• The focus of Stage 2 is determining what qualifies as evidence or proof that what we identified as most important in Stage 1.

Thinking Like an Assessor

• What kind of evidence do we need?
• What specific characteristics in student responses, products, or performances should we examine?
• Does the proposed evidence enable us to infer a student’s knowledge, skill or understanding?

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Use the table from the Curriculum Guide to explore the differences between thinking like an Assessor versus thinking like an Activity Designer.

Topics in Stage 2

• Aligning to ISTE Standards

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• Assessment Classes
• Formative
• Summative

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• Types of Assessments
• Quizzes and Tests
• Academic Prompts
• Performance Tasks

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• Rubrics

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• Check for Alignment

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ISTE Standards

• Creativity and Innovation
• Communication and Collaboration
• Research and Information Fluency
• Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making
• Digital Citizenship
• Technology Operation and Concepts

ISTE Standards and BestPrep TIW

Identify ISTE NETS Standards for Students

• Focus on what students know and be able to do to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital world.
• Utilize technology tools where appropriate.
• Use the curriculum context to teach the needed technology skills, then return to curriculum instruction using the technology as a tool to enhance the learning.

Unit Plan Template

Formative Assessments�“Assessments for learning”

• Carried out at the beginning or during a unit
• Provide the opportunity for immediate evidence of student learning
• Allows teachers to go back to a particular concept and provide additional instruction or present it in a different manner

Summative Assessments�“Assessments of learning”

• Provides accountability through comprehensive assessment
• Used to check the level of learning at the end of the unit
• Reflects the cumulative nature of the learning that takes place in reaching the unit goals and objectives

Formative Assessments are yearly checkups.

Summative Assessments are the autopsy.

(You can’t do much about anything at that point!)

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Examples

Formative Assessments

• Anecdotal records
• Quizzes and essays
• Diagnostic tests
• Lab reports

Summative Assessments

• Final exams
• Statewide tests (MCAs)
• National tests
• Entrance exams (SAT and ACT)

Go Digital

• Geddit – Students give feedback about their understandings
• Google Forms – Write simple assessments and use tools like Flubaroo to do the grading
• Kahoot! – Gameshow style questions
• Nearpod – Teacher controlled presentation with embedded assessments

Go Digital

• Poll Everywhere – Quick, free polls
• Quizlet – Flashcard style practice
• Socrative – Simple student response system
• TodaysMeet – Online discussion room
• Vocaroo – Audio recording assessments

Types of Assessments

• Quiz and Tests
• Assess for factual information, concepts, and discrete skills.
• Use selected-response or short-answer formats.
• Are convergent- typically have a single, best answer.
• May easily be scored using an answer key (or matching scoring).
• Are secure (known in advance).

Types of Assessments

• Academic Prompts
• Are open, with no single best answer or solution strategy.  
• Involve analysis, synthesis, evaluation, or a combination of the three.
• Require an explanation or defense of an answer and methods used.
• Require judgment-based scoring, using criteria and performance standards.

Types of Assessments

• Performance Tasks
• Asks a student to “do” the subject
• Replicates or simulates the context in which adults are tested in the workplace, community, and home

The GRASPS of a Performance Task

Examples of �Performance Tasks

• Demonstration
• Editorial Cartoon
• Job Interview
• Radio Ad
• Role Play

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• Sales Pitch
• Teach a Lesson
• Technical Report
• TV Variety Show
• Working Model

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Rubrics Provide Clear Criteria for Performance

• Criteria-based scoring guide
• Provides reliable judgment
• Allows students to self-assess
• Defines mastery

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Rubrics

• RubiStar Rubric Generator http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
• Rubrics for Classroom Teachers�http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/rubrics.shtml
• Rubrics beyond the K-12 classroom�http://course1.winona.edu/shatfield/air/rubrics.htm

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Check for Alignment

• Look back. Do you have at least one assessment for each essential question?

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• Appropriate criteria highlight the most revealing and important aspects of the work (given the goals), not just those parts of the work that are merely easy to see or score.

Unit Plan Template

Assessments

• Select the assessments that will be used as evidence to show student understanding.
• include the technology applied (if any) for the assessment
• the ISTE Standards (if technology is applied)
• Create rubrics for any performance assessments

Wednesday

August 2, 2023

WHERETO

Stage 3:�Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

Develop the COOL learning activities.

Develop the COOL learning activities

Now it’s time to…

Unit Plan Template

How are Learning Activities Different?

Learning Activity

• Designed to develop knowledge and/or skills that under gird an enduring understanding
• Focused, formative activity directed toward the acquisition of particular elements of knowledge or clearly identified skill
• May be based on only one or two of the facets of understanding

Performance Task

• Complex, culminating activity based on integration of knowledge, skills, and understandings gained during the unit
• Only students who have developed the desired level of understanding will be successful
• Assessments involve complex, authentic challenges frequently faced by adults in the real world

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Learning Activities Design Checklist

• The learning plan makes clear to students what they will be learning, what is expected of them and how their work will be evaluated.

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• Diagnostic assessments are used in the beginning to check for potential misunderstandings and predictable performance errors.

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• The learning plan is clearly designed to engage students, with special emphasis on the opening lessons and activities.

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• The learning plan is designed to equip learners with the prerequisite experiences necessary to understand the Big Ideas, and the needed information and skills upon which the understandings and performances depend.

Learning Activities Design Checklist

• Opportunities are provided for students to rethink their prior and emerging understandings, and to revise their work based on feedback and guidance.

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• Ongoing assessments of individual and group progress provide students with feedback and guidance.

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• The learning has been personalized to accommodate the variety of learners’ interests, styles, and abilities by differentiating content, process, and products.

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• The sequence of learning activities has been organized to maximize student engagement and productivity.

WHERETO

• Use the “WHERETO” strategy for testing the design of your learning activities.
• Check what sequence of teaching and learning experiences will equip the students to develop and demonstrate the desired understandings.

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Align ISTE Standards for Students

• Focus on what students know and be able to do to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital world.
• Utilize technology tools where appropriate.
• Use the curriculum context to teach the needed technology skills, then return to curriculum instruction using the technology as a tool to enhance the learning.

Sample Unit Plan

Learning Activities

• Write your learning activities.
• Use the “WHERETO” strategy for testing the design of your learning activities.
• Check the sequence of teaching and learning experiences to be sure they equip the students to develop and demonstrate the desired understandings.
• Verify alignment with curriculum and technology standards

Credits

Credits

• Wrap up your unit plan by completing the credits section at the bottom.