Understanding by Design

Case 1# The teacher selects a resource ( To Kill a Mockingbird). The teacher chooses specific instructional methods that the teacher believes are successful. For example, the teacher decides to use cooperative groups to analyze the novel. Finally the teacher decides on assessing the students by having them write a five paragraph essay about a theme in the book .

Discuss this case at your table – what are the strengths of the lesson? What are the next steps for this lesson?

Twin Sins Of Teaching

Activity Oriented – Hands On without Minds On

Coverage – Marching through the text book

Misconception: “If I work hard on planning it must be good.”

Steps of Backwards Planning Identify desired results Determine acceptable evidence Plan learning experiences and instruction

What is Understanding?

Quick Write What are some examples of student

understanding in your class? Share out with your table. What are characteristics of understanding

you agree on at your table?

Characteristics of Understanding

Understanding is the ability to marshal skills and facts wisely and appropriately, through effective application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Understanding is about going beyond the information given to create new knowledge and arrive at further understandings.

Understanding is about transfer. The ability to transfer our knowledge and skill effectively involves the capacity to take what we know and use it creatively, flexibly, fluently, in different settings or problems.

Children cannot be said to understand their own answer, even though it is correct, if they can only answer a question phrased just so.

In teaching students for understanding, we must grasp the key idea that we are coaches of their ability to play the game of performing with understanding, not tellers of our understanding to them on the sidelines.

Transfer involves figuring out which knowledge and skill matters here and often adapting what we know to address the challenge at hand.

Case 2

A student teacher asks students, “ What would you find if you dug a hole in the earth?” There is no response. The student teacher repeats the question and gets the same response. The master teacher interrupts and asks; “What is at the center of the Earth?”

The class replies in unison, “Igneous fusion.”

Analyze the case at your table. What does the example teach us about ‘understanding’ and ‘transferability’?

Using Big Ideas in Planning

Because big ideas are inherently transferable, they help connect discrete topics and the skills necessary for the topic.

Big ideas are the “conceptual Velcro” that help the facts and skills stick to our minds

Big ideas are linchpins.

Big Ideas are

Big ideas are at the core of the subject. Broad and abstract Represented by one or two words Universal in application Timeless – carry though the ages Big ideas can be thought of as a ‘lens’ for study. Big ideas connect and organize many facts, skills

and experiences Big ideas have great transfer value because they

apply to many other inquiries and issues over time

Case 3

A teacher assigns a five paragraph essay as an assessment for the novel Catcher in the Rye. In the essay on Catcher in the Rye a student writes the essay comparing it to “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”

Analyze the student response. What does his essay teach us about his understanding of the ‘big ideas’ of the novel?

Big ideas translate into Essential Questions and Understandings

A big idea enables the learner to make sense out of what has come before

Example – Adaptation – is a big idea, “What makes adaptation happen?” is an essential question and can easily be expressed as an essential understanding “Environmental pressure causes adaptation.”

Essential Questions

Case 4: The teacher has posted on the wall the following

questions: What is a true friend? Must a story have a beginning, a middle, and an

end? Must heroes be flawless? What makes writing worth reading?

What characteristics do you notice about these questions?Why might they be called ‘essential questions’?

Essential Questions

Cause genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content

Provoke deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions.

Require students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers

Stimulate vital, ongoing rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, prior lessons.

Spark meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences

Naturally recur, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects

Examples of Essential Questions

Is the universe expanding? Who should lead? Is a democracy that suspends freedoms a

contradiction in terms?

Why Essential Questions?

Essential questions allow students to be on the inside of how understandings are born, tested and solidified through inquiry, criticism, and verification. – The curriculum needs to treat students like performers – not like sideline observers.

Crafting Understanding

An understanding is an important inference, drawn from the experience of experts, stated as specific and useful generalization.

An understanding refers to transferable, big ideas having enduring value beyond a specific topic.

An understanding involves abstract, counterintuitive, and easily misunderstood ideas

An understanding is best acquired by uncovering and doing the subject

An understanding summarizes important strategic principles in skill areas.

Case 5

A teacher has listed as desired understandings:

Water covers three-fourths of the earth’s surface.

Things are always changing

Analyze the teacher’s desired understandings. What strengths are there? What are the next steps?

Unpacking Standards for Big Ideas and Core tasks

Examine key nouns, adjectives and verbs Big ideas are linchpins Core tasks are essential skills that make the

big idea transferable

Six Facets of Understanding

Explanation Interpretation Application Perspective Empathy Self Knowledge

Choosing the Facet of Understanding

The choice of which facet you are going to focus on will be shaped by the essential understanding

The design of the lesson, the formative assessments and the performance assessment will be influenced by the facet of understanding you choose

A Lesson Design Template: WhereTo

Where are the students going? What is required by the essential question – and the facet of understanding you choose

Hook – How will the lesson design engage the students in digging into the Big Ideas.

E – Have adequate opportunities to explore and experience Big Ideas

R – Rethink, Rehearse, Revise, Refine E – Evaluate their own work and set goals T – Tailored and flexible to address interests of all students O – Organized and sequenced to maximize engagement and

effectiveness

Lesson Design Template: Grasps

Goal – The problem or challenge is_____ Role – You have been ask to______ Audience – You need to convince_____ Situation – The context is ________ Product/Purpose – You will develop ___ Standards for Success – Your performance

needs to ________