Understanding by Design

Accomplishing the BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)

My first (half) year of teaching was a complete blur. I had all of these ideas in my head from my college courses and student teaching that I wanted to try, but my lesson plans were already laid out for me through the district. I knew what my students were learning about, and I just followed the lessons without really knowing the end goal. I had them "collect" information instead of having them connect the information to the real-world. I quickly realized I needed to change how I was approaching teaching. As I started my first full year of teaching, I had amazing mentors that helped me plan backward. We designed our lessons from what our learners needed to know and then looked at learning activities from the district to help them accomplish this. We were able to use the scripted curriculum as a guide and start implementing technology and more authentic learning activities.

Currently, I have been working on my Innovation Plan to help teachers create experiential learning in their classrooms and schools for students. In my innovation plan, teachers are learning how to create opportunities for students to engage in learning experiences that equips them with future-ready skills. Last week, I dived into Fink's 3 Column-Table to develop a broad outline for teachers to utilize that want to start implementing authentic learning in their classrooms. I used the template from Fink's 3 column-table to create an overview of how to implement my innovation plan. This template below helped break down my plan into learning goals for educators.

The 3 column table acted as a starting point for the next step in planning out my innovation plan. This week, I started reading Wiggins' and McTighe's book Understanding by Design. Like Fink, Wiggins' and McTighe focus on backward design. Our instinct is to focus on what to teach and how to teach it, but when educators focus on what learners need to know, appropriate learning activities will follow. We want to make sure as educators, and we are not creating "' hands-on activities without being minds-on'"(2005). The Understanding by Design (Ubd) Template is more detailed than the 3 Column-Table. I chose to switch my focus from the educators creating authentic learning to creating authentic learning for the students.

When I was working on the UbD, it was a more daunting task than the 3 Column-Table. Both of these designs were helpful in bringing my innovation plan to fruition. UbD allowed me to start broad and then narrow it down to the details. I started with creating my UbD for an entire 5th grade Life Science Unit, which is the Integration Learning Goal from my 3 Column Table.

Understanding by design is broken down into 3 different stages.

Stage 1: Desired Results

Stage 2: Assessment Evidence and

Stage 3: Learning Plan

When I started to work through Stage 3, I realized creating a whole unit on this template would be very time-consuming. I chose one lesson to focus on the Learning Plan. Although it is time-consuming, Stage 3 allowed me to focus on the purpose behind each activity in the lesson. Within Stage 3, you use what the authors call the "WHERETO" elements to see the meaning behind activities:

Fink, L. D. (2005). A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning. Retrieved from: https://www.deefinkandassociates.com/GuidetoCourseDesignAug05.pdf

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (expanded second ed.). Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.