The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units Author: Grant Wiggins Jay McTighe | Language: English | ISBN:
1416611495 | Format: EPUB
The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units Description
This guide is intended for K-16 educators either individuals or groups who may have received some training in Understanding by Design and want to continue their work independently; those who've read Understanding by Design and want to design curriculum units but have no access to formal training; graduate and undergraduate students in university curriculum courses; and school and district administrators, curriculum directors, and others who facilitate Understanding by Design work with staff. Users can go through the modules in sequence or skip around, depending on their previous experience with UbD and their preferred curriculum design style or approach. Unit creation, planning, and adaptation are easier than ever with the accompanying downloadable resources, including the Understanding by Design template set up as a fillable PDF form, additional worksheets, examples, and FAQs about the module topics that speak to Understanding by Design novices and veterans alike.
- Paperback: 122 pages
- Publisher: Heinle ELT; 1 edition (January 1, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1416611495
- ISBN-13: 978-1416611493
- Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
This is a useful text for planning lessons or units that follows up the UbD text written by the same authors. It is not a book about philosophy or learning theories. It's only about what principles and questions teachers should take into account when planning. There is no rigid following of a template or guidelines. What are the principles espoused by W & M? That lesson planning should be geared toward "understanding" rather than rote memory, and that it should begin with desired results, then move to assessment techniques, and finally, to the activities. This process is called "backward design." If students "understand," then they may be able to transfer the acquired knowledge to solve problems and make decisions, making learning more meaningful. The authors also discuss the four learning goals - transfer, meaning, knowledge, and skills - and the three stages of learning - acquisition, meaning-making, and transfer. These latter three did not appear on the original UbD.
Although the authors discuss many of the ideas covered in the early UbD text, the templates, the dialogues, and the guiding questions make this text an excellent complement to that first text. This is not to mention that this is adaptable to the recently established Common Core Standards. The dialogues were a great way of showing significant differences between mere coverage of content, and meaningful learning. This latter concept is achieved by asking Why am I teaching this to my students? What do I expect students to do with the skill or content?
This book is not anti-standards or anti-standardized exams. It is not a critique against any particular public policy although the authors have criticized the excessive number of standards, and policies that encourage teaching by the test (they did so in UbD).
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