How to apply Understanding by Design

1. Monday
July 31, 2023

2. Understanding by
Design
BestPrep Technology Integration Workshop 2022

3. Goals of the Unit Plan
1. Content is linked to Minnesota
Academic Standards
2. Content is linked to the ISTE
Standards
1. Emphasis of the unit is focused on
student understanding

4. Goals of the Unit Plan
4. Essential questions drive the content,
assessments, and instruction
5. An array of assessments is used to
determine the extent of student
understanding
6. Efficient and effective use of
technology is part of the student
learning

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

6. Complete your unit/ lesson plan
and supplements by Thursday at
12:00 p.m.
Your mission for the week:

7. What is
Understanding by
Design?

8. The process of “backwards
design”
1. Identify desired results:
What is worthy of student understanding?
2. Determine acceptable evidence:
How will students demonstrate their understanding?
3. Plan learning experiences, lessons, and instruction:
What will students do and experience to achieve the desired
results?

9. Understanding by
Design Resources
• Understanding by Design book by
Grant Wiggens and Jay McTighe

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

11. “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

12. UbD vs Traditional
Planning

13. 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.
Think of ways to integrate technology!

14. Stage 1:
Identify Desired Results
Establishing what is to be learned.

15. Start the Unit Plan
Template
• Unit Title
• Grade Level
• Subject Area
• Duration
• Description
Download the Unit Plan Template.

16. Established Goals

17. Complete
Established Goals
Box

18. Enduring
Understandings

19. Unit/Lesson Plan
Template
What Enduring Understandings are desired?
What Essential Questions will be considered?
Students will know / be able to:

20. Enduring Understandings
Why is this topic worth studying?

21. Enduring Understandings
They are the concepts that:
1. have lasting value beyond the classroom
2. will be retained after the details have been
forgotten
3. reside at the heart of the discipline
4. uncover the concept by “doing” the subject
5. offer potential for engaging students

22. 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

23. Enduring
Understandings Filters

24. 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.

25. 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.
1. Explanation
2. Interpretation
3. Application
4. Analysis of Perspectives
5. Empathy
6. Self-Knowledge

26. For Tuesday:
Complete Your Enduring
Understandings
•Write the “Enduring Understandings”
students should achieve in the unit.
•Make sure they pass the filters!

27. Essential
Questions

28. Essential Questions
Stimulate student thinking, provoke
inquiry, and spark more questions.

29. 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

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

32. Writing Essential
Questions
Start your questions with:
• Why…? (cause/effect)
• How…? (process)
• To what extent…? (matters of degree or kind)
Avoid starting your questions with:
• “What…?”

33. 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?

34. For Tuesday:
Complete Your Essential
Questions
•Write the “Essential Questions” that point
toward the big ideas and the enduring
understandings in your unit.

35. Tuesday
August 1, 2023

36. 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.

37. Knowledge and
Skills

38. Knowledge and Skills
Knowledge is what learners will know.
Skills are what learners will be able to do.

39. 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

40. 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.

41. Stage 2:
Determine Acceptable
Evidence
Determine how the learning is accomplished.

42. 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.

43. 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?
Use the table from the Curriculum Guide to explore
the differences between thinking like an Assessor
versus thinking like an Activity Designer.

44. Topics in Stage 2
• Aligning to ISTE
Standards
• Assessment Classes
– Formative
– Summative
• Types of
Assessments
– Quizzes and Tests
– Academic Prompts
– Performance Tasks
• Rubrics
• Check for Alignment

45. ISTE Standards
I. Creativity and Innovation
II. Communication and Collaboration
III. Research and Information Fluency
IV. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and
Decision Making
V. Digital Citizenship
VI. Technology Operation and Concepts

46. ISTE Standards and BestPrep TIW

47. 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.

48. Unit Plan Template

49. 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

50. 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

51. Formative Assessments are
yearly checkups.
Summative Assessments
are the autopsy.
(You can’t do much about anything at that point!)

52. 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)

53. 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

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

55. 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).

56. 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.

57. 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

58. The GRASPS of a
Performance Task

59. Examples of
Performance Tasks
• Demonstration
• Editorial Cartoon
• Job Interview
• Radio Ad
• Role Play
• Sales Pitch
• Teach a Lesson
• Technical Report
• TV Variety Show
• Working Model

60. Rubrics Provide Clear Criteria
for Performance
• Criteria-based scoring guide
• Provides reliable judgment
• Allows students to self-assess
• Defines mastery

61. 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

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

63. Unit Plan Template

64. 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

65. Wednesday
August 2, 2023
WHERET
O

66. Stage 3:
Plan Learning
Experiences and
Instruction
Develop the COOL learning activities.

67. Develop the COOL learning
activities
Now it’s time to…

68. Unit Plan Template

69. 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

70. 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.
✓ Diagnostic assessments are used in the beginning to check for
potential misunderstandings and predictable performance errors.
✓ The learning plan is clearly designed to engage students, with
special emphasis on the opening lessons and activities.
✓ 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.

71. 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.
✓ Ongoing assessments of individual and group progress
provide students with feedback and guidance.
✓ The learning has been personalized to accommodate the
variety of learners’ interests, styles, and abilities by
differentiating content, process, and products.
✓ The sequence of learning activities has been organized
to maximize student engagement and productivity.

72. 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.

73. 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.

74. Sample Unit Plan

75. 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

76. Credits

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