Curriculum design involves creating curriculum maps to organize standards and benchmarks by timeline. Understanding by Design (UbD) is a framework for designing curriculum units that begin with identifying desired student learning outcomes and assessments. The three stages of UbD include: 1) identifying desired results like understandings, knowledge, and skills; 2) determining acceptable evidence of student learning through assessments; and 3) planning learning experiences and instruction to achieve the desired results. Assessment evidence in UbD considers six facets of student understanding. Curriculum design tools help plan and reflect on curriculum to ensure it meets learning goals.

1. Curriculum Design

2. Curriculum Design

3. Curriculum Design

4. Curriculum Design ToolsCurriculum MapsStandards and benchmarksUnderstanding by Design (UbD)Atlas Rubicon

5. Curriculum Maps

6. Curriculum MapsMaps use a timeline to organize curriculum.Maps promote planning.Maps promote communication and collaboration.Maps promote an articulated curriculum.Maps promote professionalism and teaching creativeness.

7. Curriculum Maps

8. Curriculum Map #1

9. Curriculum Map #2

10. Curriculum Map #2

11. StandardsStandards indicate how well the student must perform, at what kinds of tasks, based on specified content.3 types of standardsContent standards answer the question, “What should students know and be able to do?”Performance standards answer the question, “How well must students do their work?”Design standards answer the question, “What worthy work should students encounter?”

12. Curriculum Map #2

13. Standards and BenchmarksGrade 2 Science = Earth Science: Humans continue to explore the composition and structure of the surface of Earth. External sources of energy have continuously altered the feature of Earth by means of both constructive and destructive forces. All life, including human civilization is dependent on Earth’s water and natural resources. SC.2.E.6.1 = Recognize that Earth is made up of rocks. Rocks come in many sizes and shapes. SC.2.E.6.2 = Describe how small pieces of rock and dead plant and animal parts can be the basis of soil and explain the process by which soil is formed.

14. Understanding by Design

15. Understanding by DesignUnit = Short for a “unit of study”. Units represent a coherent chunk of work in courses or strands, across days or weeks. An example is a unit on natural habitats and adaptation that falls under the 3rd grade science (the subject).Though no hard and fast criteria signify what a unit is, educators generally think of a unit as a body of subject matter that is somewhere in length between a lesson and an entre course of study; that focuses on a major topic or process and that lasts between a few days and a few weeks.

16. Understanding by Design

17. Understanding by Design

18. Understanding by DesignStage 1: Identify Desired ResultsStage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and InstructionStage 4: Reflection

19. Understanding by DesignStage 1: Identify Desired ResultsWhat are the desired student learning outcomes for the unit? What will students know and be able to do after they complete the unit?

20. Understanding by DesignStage 1: Identify Desired ResultsStage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence What assessment tools, project completion, presentations, rubric design, tests, quizzes, etc. will appropriately assess and inform that students have met the desired outcomes?

21. Understanding by DesignStage 1: Identify Desired ResultsStage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and InstructionAfter determining the desired results and the acceptable evidence, what teaching methodology, lessons, classroom experiences and activities will best achieve the desired learning outcomes?

22. Understanding by DesignStage 1: Identify Desired ResultsStage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and InstructionStage 4: Reflection

23. UbD Stage 1Identify ResultsStandardsUnderstandingsKnowledge & SkillsEssential Questions

24. UbD Stage 2Assessment Evidence: 6 Facets of UnderstandingCan explainCan interpretCan applyHave perspectiveCan empathizeHave self-knowledge

25. UbD Stage 26 Facets of UnderstandingCan explain – provide thorough, supported and justifiable accounts of phenomena, fact and dataCan interpretCan applyHave perspectiveCan empathizeHave self-knowledge

26. UbD Stage 26 Facets of UnderstandingCan explainCan interpret – tell meaningful stories; offer apt translations; provide a revealing historical or personal dimension to ideas and events; make it personal or accessible through images, anecdotes, analogies and modelsCan applyHave perspectiveCan empathizeHave self-knowledge

27. UbD Stage 26 Facets of UnderstandingCan explainCan interpretCan apply – effectively use and adapt what we know in diverse contentsHave perspectiveCan empathizeHave self-knowledge

28. UbD Stage 26 Facets of UnderstandingCan explainCan interpretCan applyHave perspective – see and hear points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big pictureCan empathizeHave self-knowledge

29. UbD Stage 26 Facets of UnderstandingCan explainCan interpretCan applyHave perspectiveCan empathize – find value in what others might find odd, alien or implausible, perceive sensitively on the basis of prior direct experienceHave self-knowledge

30. UbD Stage 26 Facets of UnderstandingCan explainCan interpretCan applyHave perspectiveCan empathizeHave self-knowledge – perceive the personal style, prejudices, projections, and habits of mind that both shape and impede our own understanding; we are aware of what we do not understanding and why understanding is so hard

31. UbD Stage 3Learning Activities“Note that the teacher will address the specifics of instructional planning – choices about teaching methods, sequence of lessons, and resource materials – after identifying the desired results and assessments. Teaching is a means to an end. Having a clear goal helps us as educators to focus our planning and guide purposeful action toward the intended results.”

32. UbD Stage 4ReflectionWhat worked and didn’t work? Should the sequence be changed?Should additional activities be added or some deleted?Are there supplemental activities that can be added to modify instruction for special needs students?

33. Atlas Rubicon

34. Assignment TodayWorking with your team, select a unit to begin to develop using the Understanding by Design template. Review the standards and benchmarks to ensure they are accurate for the unit.* Create a list of what knowledge students should have and what skills students should have.* Develop the enduring understanding(s) for the unit.