"Do not go where the path leads;
Rather, go where there is no path and leave a trail."
-Emerson

Since Wiggins and McTighe first published Understanding by Design in 1998 their work has steadily increased in popularity as it fills in many of the blanks for educators striving to meet new state and national standards while maintaining their belief in constructivist teaching pedagogy. While UbD is not exclusively a model for constructivists, it lends itself to sound instructional design principles regardless of your orientation to teaching and learning. Today the principals of backward design espoused in this landmark work are being implemented in schools around the world as the dialogue continues on educational reform in the twenty-first century.

Interestingly enough, UbD arose from a strange confluence of talent which came together in the 1990s. Heidi Hayes-Jacobs was a visionary in curriculum integration who created the concept of curriculum mapping as an innovative tool to revamp and tighten what we teach in our schools. Grant Wiggins had made his name as a guru in authentic assessment strategies. And Jay McTighe had pioneered work on collaborative assessment tasks at the The Maryland Assessment Consortium. While Jacobs first presented the notions of backward design, enduring ideas and essential questions, Wiggins and McTighe have advanced her ideas that much further through their work together. The links below offer top quality resources to promote backward design and teaching for understanding. We all know how quickly things can change on the web, so my advice is if you like one of these resources get permission from the author and save them locally while you can!

This month I have an article entitled "MI, IT and Standards: The Story of Jamie" in the New Horizons for Learning Online Journal. You can view it at http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/mi/mckenzie.htm. It is based on chapter 8 in my book Multiple Intelligences and Instructional Technology: A Manual for Every Mind which discusses the importance of authentic performance tasks in reaching children in this age of assessment and accountability. I hope you'll read and enjoy it; feel free to share the URL with your friends and colleagues as well!

Next week we will look at curriculum mapping as an extension of this week's edition. Thanks to Jerry B as always for contributing his recommendations to this week's newsletter. Remember, any subscriber can send in topic suggestions or high quality URLs on an upcoming topic for consideration as we continue to share the wealth of what's available online for educators!

ALPS: Teaching for Understanding - http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/bigideas/q4.cfm

Presented by Harvard's Project Zero, this particular section of Active Learning Practices for Schools (ALPS) is on building sound instruction through innovative practices. You have to register (it's free) so that you can keep track of the units you design (they are archived on their site). Once you select the Start a New Design link you login, name a new unit or select an existing one you've created, and then identify a framework in which to work. It is very intuitive and easy to use.

Assessment, Evaluation and Curriculum Redesign - http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/month7/index.html

Using the work of Heidi Hayes- Jacobs, this free WNET-hosted online workshop is self-paced and full of content that is practical and thought-provoking. Topics covered include "What is the range of assessments and evaluations that students and teachers face?" "What do assessment-focused lesson plans look like?" "How can assessment, evaluation, and curriculum redesign involve parents and the community?" and "How can technology be used with assessment, evaluation, and curriculum redesign?"

Assessment Reform: Some Concrete Next Steps - http://www.relearning.org/resources/PDF/Nextsteps.pdf

Presented by Relearning by Design, this document offers specific strategies for moving your faculty past the initial phase of curriculum reform while keeping assessment in perspective as a key factor driving the process. If you like their specific examples for your school program, you'll love their Task and Unit Design Samples and Resources http://www.relearning.org/resources/PDF/task_sampler.pdf for your teachers: 49 pages of actual authentic assessment tasks in the backward design model.

Backward, First! - http://it.spring-branch.isd.tenet.edu/public/kearnsj/backward_home.htm

Houston's Spring Branch Independent School District presents this teacher-friendly online tutorial on backward design. It discusses the model in five easy-to-digest steps and then offers an online template for creating a lesson in backward design format. In addition to using the online form to create your own lessons, the search tool allows you to consider the ideas of others who have contributed to this rich resource.

Digital Literacy Backward Design Template - http://digitalliteracy.mwg.org/curriculum/template.html

I like Media Working Group's approach to online instruction. Their Digital Literacy mission is "rethinking education and training in a digital world" and judging by their online offerings they mean to do just that. Take this backward design template as a case in point: you can either type right into the fields offered on the web page and print out your plan or use the link for the .pdf formatted version and fill in the blanks by hand. They faithfully follow the UbD steps of identifying desired results, determining acceptable evidence and planning learning experiences.

Education for a Sustainable Future - http://csf.concord.org/esf/CurrViewByTopic.cfm

ESF offers some three dozen units on caring for our planet and communities all presented in a backward design format. The units span the K-12 range and include categories of Designing Sustainable Communities, Stewardship of Resources and Thinking About and Affecting the Future. Interesting Unit titles include Palms, Probes, and The Pond (K-2), What if Rip Van Winkle and I Were to Awaken in 2025? (6-8) and Is The Answer is Blowing in the Wind? (9-12).

How to Develop and Use Performance Assessments - http://www.aac.ab.ca/backward.html

The Alberta Assessment Consortium keys in on a critical component of backward design: the difference between thinking like an activity designer and thinking like an assessor. Using the work of Wiggins and McTighe, they present this concept up front before launching into the backward design process. For a more substantive discussion of effective assessment practices, see their Q&A page at http://www.aac.ab.ca/class.html.

Sample Backward Design Units - http://www.tarleton.edu/~sanderson/Sample%20Backward%20Design%20Units.html

Dr. Steve Anderson of Texas' Tarleton State University showcases these 33 units created by his students. They are all in Microsoft Office format, and they nicely demonstrate a succinct, practical format for utilizing backward design in unit planning. Units are presented in subject area categories covering many topics that crop up consistently across state curricula.

Questioning for Understanding - http://www.odedodea.edu/instruction/support/profdev/questioning/questioningrubric.doc

The Department of Defense presents this nice classification of question types which can be used as a quick reference for designing assessments that accurately assess student understanding. Page 1 identifies models of teaching and their respective skills and strategies sets and page 2 is a four-point rubric that evaluates eleven different kinds of questioning strategies from most to least effective with descriptive exemplars.

Understanding by Design - http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/books/wiggins98book.html

Excerpts from the Wiggins-McTighe book right on the ASCD site as part of the original promotion for its publication, this site offers a nice sampling of their manuscript by covering the introduction and chapters 1 and 2. If you are not familiar with UbD but you'd like a more comprehensive treatment of the topic than a mere overview, this is the place to start.

Understanding by Design Templates - http://www.maine207.k12.il.us/staffdev/wiggins.pdf

The Maine, Illinois School District 207 put together this collection of assessments in one document after inviting Grant Wiggins to present a workshop to its teachers. It includes a unit design template, an evaluation template, a performance task blueprint, a summative assessment design template, and a template for a course curriculum map. Since they're presented in .pdf format they are ready to print and use.

What is Backward Design? - http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/departments/isa/ms_institute/BDes.pdf

The Montgomery County, Maryland Public Schools presents this nicely done overview of backward design which accurately represents the model and is ready to print and share to help educate colleagues or inform stakeholders in your community of the process. The ASCD link listed above goes into more depth, but this is ideal as an introduction for novices. Includes a glossary to help sort through that educational jargon we speak so well. See also http://www.pgcps.org/~croom/what_is_backward_design.htm for an even more basic overview.

 

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Next week's topic: "Curriculum Mapping"

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