Understanding by Design (UbD)
OVERVIEW
Understanding by Design (UbD) is an instructional design framework developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in 1988. Ubd emphasizes backward design and a learner-centered approach to teaching and learning. The backward design enables instructors to determine what to teach, how to teach it, the organization, the evaluation, and the achievement of goals at the end of the course (Ozyurt et al., 2021).
There are three stages of Understanding by Design (UbD):
Stage 1 – Identify Desired Outcomes
This stage focuses on the elements of knowledge, skills, understanding, and essential questions based on the given education. Knowledge and skills focus on what students should acquire and be able to do. Understanding focuses on ideas that students should retain for the long term, while essential questions promote research, discovery, and critical thinking (Ozyurt et al., 2021).
Stage 2- Determine Acceptable Evidence
This stage emphasizes assessment and evaluation as determinants of evidence for the achievement of the identified desired outcomes. Instructors at this stage determine how learners demonstrate their understanding through real-world application, performance-based tasks, such as projects, along with other evidence, including analytical rubrics, portfolios, quizzes, discussions, tests, and reflections.
Stage 3- Learning Plan and Instructions
This stage uses the 'WHERETO' framework to analyze the alignment of learning activities with the desired outcome by focusing on elements of how to assist learners in achieving their learning goals.
W- Where is the unit going and why?
H- How to hook and engage students?
E- How to get students to explore and experience?
R- How will learners rethink, revise, and reflect?
E- How will learning be evaluated?
T- How will instructions be tailored to address individual differences?
O- How will learning be organized for long-term goals and desired results?
The tenets that guide the Understanding by Design framework are:
UbD enhances the purposeful thinking of curricular planning
UbD focuses on developing and deepening student understanding.
UbD emphasizes that the transfer of knowledge to real-world situations is the ultimate goal.
Backward design planning of an effective curriculum from long-term desired results is through a three-stage process (Desired results, Evidence, and Learning Plan).
Teachers focus on ensuring learning occurs.
Regular review of units and curriculum against design standards enhances quality, engagement, and effectiveness.
UbD ensures a continuous improvement approach to achievement (Tonia & Robert,2022).
IMPLICATIONS OF UbD MODEL FOR INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
The Understanding by Design (UbD) model significantly shapes how instructional designers approach the stages of instructional development. UbD shifts instructional design toward backward design, refocusing from activity-centered instruction to goal-aligned instruction by making lesson planning and courses more intentional and aligned with goals. The stages of the UbD model help instructors clearly identify desired learning outcomes, determine acceptable evidence of learning, and plan learning experiences to ensure instruction aligns with learners' expected goals of understanding and transfer of knowledge beyond the classroom (Tonia & Robert, 2022).
UbD emphasizes authentic assessment as integral to instruction, enabling designers to plan assessments that determine whether learners have achieved understanding through performance-based tasks, portfolios, and real-world applications. UbD promotes the intentional alignment of instruction with shared goals, thereby enhancing coherence and time management.
Overall, UbD reinforces inquiry-based instructional design by emphasizing essential questions, differences in learning experiences, deep understanding, and knowledge and skills, reframing instructional design as an outcome-first, evidence-driven process centered on big ideas, differentiation, and engagement (Tonia & Robert, 2022).
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS TO MY MINI COURSE
STRENGTHS
UbD provides strong support for the enduring understanding of my mini course, which focuses on the ethics and responsible application of AI tools by instructors in the educational context. For example, instead of directly teaching technical skills for AI tools, the course emphasizes an enduring understanding of ethical responsibility, transparency, academic integrity, and data privacy.
UbD supports authentic assessment by designing performance-based tasks that allow instructors to make decisions and use real-world problems to determine the right and wrong use of AI tools. For example, a performance-based task that requires participants to redesign existing lesson content and ethically integrate AI tools.
UbD reinforces the use of essential questions to understand how the use of AI tools respects academic integrity and student privacy, enhances transparency, and what responsible integration looks like in professional adaptation.
UbD promotes reflection and revision of the ethical AI tools' benefits to understand the essential questions of when the use of AI tools supports academic integrity, protects learners' privacy, transparency, and understanding when it undermines these elements.
LIMITATIONS
UbD emphasis on defining what understanding looks like, aligned performance tasks, and ethical transfer of knowledge can feel too complex due to the limited time for my mini course. For example, the stages of the UbD framework require more preparation time than participants can realistically invest.
UbD sets a clearly defined learning outcome, which can be challenging for my mini course, as it focuses on an evolving topic.
My mini course participants are instructors in different academic faculties. The UBD model may limit participants' choices of tools relevant to their academic context, thereby restricting them, unless flexibility is intentionally included in course activities and assessments.
REFERENCES
Ozyurt, M., Kan, H., & Kiyikci, A. (2021). The Effectiveness of Understanding by Design Model in Science Teaching: A Quasi-experimental Study. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research (EJER), 94, 1–23. https://doi-org.e
Tonia A. Dousay, & Robert Maribe Branch. (2022). Survey of Instructional Design Models : Sixth Edition. Brill.