Template applying UbD standards :Develop an implementation plan for teachers.

Scenario 4: Create your Own : digital technology tool  for learning design.

Goal: School teachers(K-12)are able to identify technology tools for teaching use and  implement their own online learning design.

Role: You are an instructional technologist tasked with developing a program to train teachers on  implementing technology-based learning.

Audience: School teachers (K-12) with a diverse technology understanding and skill set.

Task: Develop an implementation plan for teachers to select and apply technology assets for student  learning.  

Background 

       Understanding by Design UbD is a model of planning championed by Wiggins and McTighe (1998) as a method of intentional planning in education. At its core, UbD has three main stages: (a) Identify the desired results, (b) determine the desired evidence, and (c) plan instruction and experiences to meet the results. The first stage examines the goals of a course and reviews the applicable standards and outcomes. This stage might be the most important of the three. As the standards movement becomes predominant in education, it is up to institutions to determine what is essential for students to know and be able to do in each subject. These outcomes, termed essential learnings, come from a governing body such as a school district, an institution, or a teacher with expertise in a particular field. The goal of the study school was to define essential learnings that have depth. Once the essential learnings had been clearly identified, the appropriate assessment evidence was determined to be a mix of formative and summative assessments as well as performance assessments to demonstrate understanding. The third step was to develop a plan for the unit or course that would expose the students to the goals and assess the success in meeting a given standard. The UbD design format was chosen so that each course that was developed had an intentional design. Part of the UbD framework included the many tools available for planning units. These tools helped the planners to identify results, consider appropriate evidence, and plan the steps to meet the standard. The UbD template informed the designer of the necessary components and helped in the UbD planning process (McTighe, Emberger, & Carber, 2008). Using UbD helped to ensure that the focus was on the 4 Cs.

MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2015 .from  https://jolt.merlot.org/vol11no1/Florian_0315.pdf

     Using the Understanding by Design’s (UbD) framework can help ensure that curriculum, content, and assessment are aligned with the specific outcomes and transferable skills we seek to impart to our students.  UbD is a process of backward curriculum design. There are three important steps to backward design planning: 

Step 1: Identify desired results

Begin with the end in mind: What are the desired results for the lesson, unit, or exercise? Identifying the specific content knowledge or skill set teachers expect from students helps to narrow focus. Textbooks, the Internet, and the world at large provide such rich content options that it can be difficult to hone in on our exact goals for a lesson.

Identifying the educational priorities of a lesson or unit deliberately narrows content into a manageable stream. “Understandings” and “Essential Questions” help articulate and communicate the educational priorities. This, again, narrows focus and ensures that content is the means, and skill acquisition and transfer are the end.  

Step 2: Determine a method of assessment

In the second step, you decide how to assess learning. This assessment goes much deeper than a simple multiple-choice exam. It should measure a person’s ability to attain those educational goals and exhibit high-level learning.  Major assessments should examine several of the six key traits of deep learning identified by UbD:  Explanation, Interpretation, Application, Perspective, Empathy, Self-knowledge.

Deliberate assessment may not measure every time, but when significant learning needs to be examined, an assessment that requires a combination of these skills can help instructors to know if students understand the material enough to transfer their knowledge outside of the classroom.

Step 3: Plan instruction and learning experiences

Once you have created deliberate goals and identified assessment methods, plan individual learning experiences aligned to the educational goals and assessment with a deliberate focus on how those individual learning experiences support transfer, meaning-making, and skill acquisition.

An important final step can be a reflection. After the individual lessons or the unit as a whole, it is incredibly important to revisit that first step and measure how effectively the individual learning experiences aligned with the overall goals.

UbD is a way of thinking purposefully about curricular planning and school reform. It offers a 3-stage design process, a set of helpful design tools, and design standards -- not a rigid program or prescriptive recipe. The primary goal of UbD is student understanding: the ability to make meaning of “big ideas” and transfer their learning.  UbD reflects a “continuous improvement” approach. The results of curriculum designs - student performance - informs needed adjustments.