B2+UbD+Chapter+3

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Abstract
Chapter three addresses the importance of content in the classroom. It describes the way standards influence backwards design, and the way that differentiation can allow for content to be presented to students in a manner that keeps them engaged. The chapter introduces the idea of a three-stage planning template, which “unpacks” standards given by the curriculum. As we learned in class, the template breaks down each standard into “big ideas,” or established goals that students will understand, which can further be broken down into “essential questions” that students should be able to answer after the unit. Following these, educators determine assessment evidence that will be deemed acceptable proof of understanding, as well as learning plans that allow for differentiation. The main idea of the chapter is to focus on an essential understanding throughout the unit while being responsive during individual lessons.

After reading the responses to this chapter, several key concepts continually came up. One of these was the idea of information overload, which derives from the standards and benchmarks determined to be essential in education. The standards, intended to focus learning, are so widespread and overwhelming that in order to cover them all, teachers must use a “mile wide, inch deep” approach that does not give students legitimate understanding of any of the material, and instead gives basic, detached facts that are not very useful in application or critical thinking. The motive of the chapter was to deter this type of education, and this philosophy became the foundation behind almost every response. Nearly every reaction notes the importance of “unpacking” the “big ideas” of a lesson, and focusing on overarching goals for each unit that can be broken down several times in several ways to encourage true understanding of the concepts. A lot of responses also appreciate the differentiation that backwards design allows for each unit, and many determine that this was the template they would like to use when instructing a classroom of their own. A resource I found that offered guidance and support in creating units using Understanding by Design, and I also found a helpful [|online organizer] for designing and sharing unit.

Joe S.

Emily H.
The issue that is discussed in this chapter is the “overload” of curriculum that is expected of teachers to do. Between the State and National curriculum needs it is difficult for teachers to find a way to not over load their students. Overloading can prevent students from learning what they are supposed to learn. As a teacher, I want to be able to avoid this overloading and use the planning backwards in a way that will help my students learn. I found in planning backwards the finding of the key words within the curriculum standard to achieve the standard in the classroom. By using these words as clues, I believe that I will be able to use the standard more effectively. As a teacher, I would use the figure 3.1 templates in my lesson planning. Organizing a lesson in this way would be effective not only for me but for my students. I would be able to have a clear goal planned out for that lesson. This template is designed in a way that the visual aspects enhance my ability to be an effective teacher. I also like the template, figure 3.3, with the example of using the differated instruction within a backward planning. With this example I am able to see which areas I would be able to have my students use their strength so that they learn in a way that works for them. The breaking down of stages 1 through 3 was helpful to really understand whom planning backwards really works. By thinking about the desired results in stage 1, I will be able to have a more focused lesion without being all over the place during a lesson. Stages 2 and 3 help create the dire goals that I would be looking for.

Cameron B.
This chapter has an emphasis on planning backwards when it comes to __#|lesson plans__. This was new to me. Identifying the desired results that we want out of the lessons is first. This is where the curriculum is broken down and we need to pick exactly what our lesson will focus on. Some lessons will have far too much content to fit into a lesson so taking what is important is key. Next is determining what is evidence that students are learning the materials. This could be assessments to show if students are truly grasping the information. Lastly stage three discusses what skills the students will need in order to perform well during the lessons. This is where the teacher needs to choose activities that will help achieve the goals set in stage one. To find if students are meeting these goals teachers need to be flexible on their assessments. If a student is a poor writer and has a hard time explaining a concept on paper. Maybe an oral explanation or drawing a diagram to explain the concept will __#|work__ just the same.

 I plan on using the plan on planning backwards in my classroom. I see how this can be beneficial when it comes to planning. It makes the goals of the lesson clear and allows the me to plan activities that will help my students succeed. I need to make sure I am assessing my students to make sure that they truly do understand the content, and if the way I am assessing them is difficult then I should allow them to prove to me they understand in a different way.

Ali P
The chapter quotes, “A river needs banks to flow.” I feel that this explains backward design. You start with the highest peak or goal and then build your way down. Water then follows gravity down the bank, as knowledge does a lesson. Students learn well when they have a goal in mind and know where they are headed. The chapter explains how with content, quantity often takes over quality. There is so much for teachers to teach and so little time to teach it. Students learn better when they cover less but dig deep into it. The chapter mentions using state standards or making standards with other teachers, not making them on your own. I feel that backward design has structure but allows for flexibility as well. Once you have your goal of what to teach, you can do what ever you need to, to obtain it. In high school I had a calculus teacher that instead of teaching us a proof, he would give us the proof and have us figure out how it works. I found this to be extremely challenging. In the end I felt that I learned it better then I would of if I had just been taught it. Reading about backward design reminds me of this. When I become a teacher I hope to be able to give my students clear goals and help them to obtain them. I feel that learning this way of backward design so early in my teaching career will help me to do so. I hope to become confident with backward design. Right now it seems a little intimidating and backwards.

Brittany R.
This chapter was very comforting for me because it was realistic towards the content. There is no way that one teacher and teach his or her students everything about a subject in the given time frame. Nor can a single student absorb everything there is to absorb from an entire textbook. As a student, I have always preferred my professors to narrow down the big idea and then test on that. When a professor tends to be broader with their lectures and teach everything there is to know, I become stressed and confused on what I am going to be tested on. With Math being my concentration, I realize that there is a lot of content that will need to be shared with my students in order to build a good basis for the math classes they will take in the future. I feel a lot of my peers in high school struggled with math because they didn’t receive a good foundation and unfortunately for math, it is a very sequential learning pattern in that you can’t continue to learn about the subject without mastering the previous step. I want to eliminate this struggle for my students and if they haven’t mastered the previous course prior to mine, I want to make sure I play catch up with said students. I also appreciated the paragraph that talked about how textbooks should be used as tools and not used to enable a chronological march. Even when I was in school, the only reason I used my textbook was to get homework. If possible I would like to teach without a textbook so the students can rely on my notes as well as their own so they can learn from their own ideas.

Nicole C.
This chapter addressed a problem many teachers are facing nowadays: how to decide exactly what to teach when there is so much content and so little time. I knew that there was a problem with teachers using their textbooks far too much to guide their units, but I had no idea that there were a hefty amount of content standards everyone is expected to follow as well. Looking at the examples given in the book, I definitely believe that the current standards need a //lot// of tweaking. Some are too broad, some are too specific, and they ultimately add more to the teacher’s syllabus rather than reduce the load that is already there. I would feel overwhelmed by this upon first stepping out in the field, but luckily this chapter had a solution to this predicament: backward design. The three stages (identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, and plan learning experiences and instruction) helped me to understand a good, logical way of planning a unit through backward design. I am excited to practice this over the course of the semester, because I can definitely see myself applying this process to units when I devise them for my own future classrooms. I think it is safe to say that this chapter impacted me in a positive way – it gave me a sense of relief to discover that there //are// ways of teaching the necessary content. What it all comes down to is unpacking those scary standards into a few “big ideas” I can work with.

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Phillip C.
Planning lessons is hard enough for teachers, but one big problem they have to contend with is content overload. An astounding number was given in the beginning of the chapter which claimed if thirty minutes of instruction went to each recognized standard then kids would need 15,465 more hours of schooling. That blew me away. Not only did I not realize how many standards there were, I also didn’t realize how much my teachers had to work to narrow down their curriculum. The solution to this is something we are all getting some practice at; narrowing the unit down to big ideas and essential questions. I never thought about planning lessons this way before but it makes so much sense now that I have. The essential questions are a great guiding tool and work almost like instructions which I appreciate as a clipboard type person. Although we have just started and been introduced to this idea of planning backwards, I will definitely be using it in my classroom. The chapter also taught me a little more about the second and third stage of backward planning that we haven’t discussed in depth yet. They are very important however, as being able to assess student proficiency and the actual planning of instruction is the meat of teaching. I also think that without backward planning I might have fallen into the trap of bringing coverage oriented learning into my classroom. I will seek to avoid that now. The other previous concept that was drawn in to this, and is important to consider, is responsive teaching. Assessments need to be tailored to students of different skill levels and backgrounds to gain a true measure of their understanding.

Tyler R.
I really furthered my understanding on a lot of concepts during this chapter. I really enjoyed what the chapter had to say about how students benefit from lessons that cover a broad range of content, but highlight the specific and important details. I believe that is the way a lesson should be planned out. Using Backward Design, the teacher can plan the lesson out to focus on answering key questions and for students to be able to accomplish specific tasks/goals by the end of the lesson. With this in mind, the teacher will be able to create a lesson that can put all of these things into use. One thing I learned that came as a surprise to me, was that “activity orientated” instruction is considered the first “sin” to teaching. I always found activities to be helpful to me because I could put what I was learning to the test to see if I truly understood the concept. Apparently, according to the book, such activities aren’t designed well for allowing students to hang on to the information that they are receiving. I still disagree with that though. I believe that, (and like the book said), if the activities are following a lesson that has goals that are clearly set out and is truly putting what the teacher is teaching to the students to the test, how is that a “sin” to teach? Is that not what the previous chapter was discussing about how to assess students’ understanding? Finally, I agreed with the differentiated instruction portion and especially the different ways in order to assess students’ understand of key concepts. I thought that saying that the key ideas and goals should not be tampered with, but the lessons/activities, and especially the ways to assess students’ understanding should be differentiated was very well said.

**Jackson F.**
Today their is not enough time to cover all the content necessary to ensure that students understand the entirety of what is being taught. Standards come in varying sizes; some standards can be stated largely that makes the intended goal lost, other standards can be to narrow and does not provide enough content to achieve the goal. Wiggins and McTighe believed that learning results should be based around the “big ideas”. Having the ideas then allows for essential questions, these are used to focus on teaching and learning. The more specific concepts and skills can then be taught in order to explore larger ideas. Curriculum planning is much like a maze, starting from the beginning might pose many trial and errors, or you can start at the end and work your way back to the beginning. The chapter breaks up curriculum planning into three stages: 1. Identify desired results, 2. Determine acceptable evidence, and 3. Plan learning experiences and instruction. Planning backwards allows planning goals right from the start and then developing strategies in order to achieve them. The initial design may not work for all the students in the classroom; however this design allows room to differentiate the plan in order to accommodate learning styles of students. When accommodating it is important not to change the goals but instead find ways to use certain knowledge and skills to help the student achieve the goals. I never really thought about planning backwards, after reading this chapter I see the benefits of doing that. Within the classroom I believe having a well planned unit by using backward design will be very effective way of teaching. It also seems easy to manipulate in order to accommodate for different levels of skills students possess. = =

Jackie B.
This chapter was incredibly helpful for me because it focused on standards and how to build a unit using the backwards design method which we are currently learning in class. The information provided definitely helped me out in a sense that it clarified stage one and allowed me to see what was coming up next in stage two and stage three. I haven’t really decided yet how I feel about the backwards planning. I’m willing to give it a try and be open but I’m not quite sold on it yet. I really like the fact that this chapter provided a planning template. I was able to see a little bit more clearly what went in each box. I really liked how they broke down each stage and explained it a little bit more.I definitely highlighted the three stage break downs because I know I’ll be coming back to them later for help. Because we are currently working on stage one I definitely paid a little bit more extra attention to it. I didn’t realize planning a unit could be so time consuming. I definitely have a new appreciation for my teachers that I had back in elementary, middle, and high school. I’m also really grateful for standards now because I read at the beginning of the chapter about how information in some subject contents were growing. With standards I think this helps as a guideline to figure out what we want our students to know by the end of the year.

Joe S.
This chapter addresses the importance of content in the classroom, and the best way to structure the presentation of material. It discusses backward design and how it improves upon the “one size fits all” method of teaching, as well as the teaching students based on standards and benchmarks.

The author denounces standards-based learning on the grounds that it overloads teachers and students. Students are meant to learn many concepts, but can be bogged down by small details that take away from main foci. In a separate qualm, methods of assessment are criticized on the basis of students’ abilities and strengths.

The chapter suggests an alternative structure to presenting concepts and material within a classroom called “backward design.” It focuses on the final result, and keeps in mind an “enduring understanding” that presents itself in all of the lessons throughout the unit. Backward design is a basic outline that can be followed but manipulated as needed; framework that is a guide for the individual lessons.

One of the most important things I took away from this chapter is the importance of differentiating assessments, whether it be in the form of group projects, oral responses, visual assessments, or by exams. This could be implemented in my class in several ways, such as a model for a graph, a verbal explanation on solving a problem or a poster on a famous mathematician. Overall, this chapter recommends using a rough outline that allows for responsive teaching and inspires students to connect what they are learning to an essential question that is enduring throughout their lives.

Meng H.
Chapter 3 discussed the reasons why we need the backward design for curriculum planning. The backward design process consists of three stages. Stage 1 focuses on the desired goals of teaching and learning for the unit. The “big ideas” and essential questions should be the same for all the students. However, the knowledge and skills could be differentiated for students. Stage 2 determines assessments needed to show that the learning goals have been reached by all students. The means of assessments could be differentiated based on the students’ abilities and needs, but the key criteria of assessments should be the same for all students. Stage 3 demonstrates responsive teaching comprehensively when teachers can use various methods to deliver the content material to suit students’ needs. After reading this chapter I got a better idea of how to develop a backward design for the unit I am working on in Dr. Grace’s class. I especially like the idea of “unpacking” the nouns and verbs in the common core standards to figure out the “big ideas,” essential questions and assessments. Backward design makes sense to me when I need to design my lesson plans. In order for me to be able to use backward design, I first need to know my students really well. Knowing their interests, needs, abilities, cultural backgrounds, etc., I will be able to find approaches that will be engaging and challenging at the same time. For mathematics, there are always clear goals that we want to achieve at the end of our teaching. We need to figure out the “big ideas” and essential questions to lead the students to the goal. When on stage 2 and stage 3, I can utilize assistive technology and internet resources as alternative approaches to meet students learning needs.

Clayton P.
This chapter dealt with a very common problem that every teacher is going to face: the problem of having too much content to be taught in the given amount of time. This problem is often made worse by content standards which, as explained in the book, can be quite baffling in their expectations. Efforts have been made to make more reasonable content standards, or at least add supplementary documents that would modify the standards to make them more reasonable, but to no avail. Content overload is also made worse by textbook companies who, in addition to the nation, states and school districts, have their own expectations for students and teachers alike.

The authors then describe how content overload can be avoided. Rather than focus on the amount of content, they recommend focusing on key concepts and questions that will ultimately lead to more effective classroom instruction. This is known as “planning backward.” The concept of planning backward has been around since the mid-20th century. It works by instructing teachers to do three things: identify the desired results for the students, determine the acceptable evidence for the results given by the students, and plan the content instruction accordingly. This method not only avoids content overload, but also what the authors refer to as the “twin sins” of teaching. The first is known as “activity-oriented” instruction. More common at the elementary and middle levels, it does not produce effective long-term knowledge. The second, more common in secondary education, is “coverage,” meaning simply to instruct solely from a textbook to facilitate the content intake.

This was a valuable chapter, as it dealt with a critical issue that many of us will face as teachers through the concept of backwards planning.

Andrew C
In this chapter I learned the importance of backwards planning when putting together units. We had talked over it briefly in class but this chapter really pointed out how it makes the end product so much better. Back wards planning allows for me to pick out the few essential questions and goals for the unit and then plan everything else around that. When you have a set of goals to work with and a few different ways to assess these goals it makes it a lot easier on the students and myself when planning lessons. I know that I will use this backward method in my classroom because it will make putting history lessons together simpler. History can be hard to teach because there is such a broad range of information and ways to teach this information. The backward method allows for me to pick out the main points of my unit first and then build up the supporting details to these main points. This definitely helps to get rid of a lot of the information that is not necessary and or does not work with the unit. I also learned in this chapter a few techniques to making the essential questions for the backward design model. The author pointed out that by looking at the state and national standards and picking out the verbs and nouns one can then have a better idea what the questions and assessments should cover. It was interesting to read that this style is best used for unit development not lesson development.