week+of+feb+23+and+25

This week we are wrapping up our work on the first phase of the Backwards Design Process, namely "identifying desired results." This phase is largely for the designer to identify and frame the purpose of an instructional unit, though I do think this framing is important for students since we want them to understand where they are headed and why. As such, we'll be reviewing some of the key ideas from the previous several chapters in UBD. These first six chapters of UBD focus on the concept of "understanding," as well as with concepts related to planning learning experiences that help to reveal and foster students' understandings.

As a result of this week, we'll understand the traits of "understanding" and we'll be able to frame understandings as goals for ourselves and our colleagues (i.e. goals in our units).

Feb 23

Using the Frayer Model to review and tease out some important concepts ...


 * Understanding
 * Essential Questions
 * Transfer(ability)
 * Choose one: "standards," "core tasks," or "big ideas"

Link to Frayer Model document ([])

[We'll use chart paper divided into four segments and within each segment we'll have the Frayer Model (so, four Frayer Models on 1 piece of chart paper). We'll be in concentric circles, so the inner circle will rotate to the left. this means we'll have different partners each time we work on a different concept. Hang posters and museum walk to Notice. Name. Apply or What do we See? / What does it Mean? interpretation frameworks]

Discuss.
 * How does this focus on "understanding" fit within the larger Backwards Design Process (Identifying Desired Results --> Determining Acceptable Evidence --> Planning Learning Experiences)
 * How does an understanding of "understanding" help (or not) to avoid a "coverage" or "activity" approaches to learning and teaching?
 * How do the different facets of understanding help us to craft essential questions that students might inquire into during a unit?
 * What does it sound/look/feel like to really pursue an inquiry?
 * What might doubters of an inquiry approach to instructional design say about using the Backwards Design Process? What would believers say?

Drafting Essential Questions (probably get to this on Thursday) (using Figure 5.3, p.120 and Figure 6.3 p.137 to frame our unit)


 * overarching v topical understanding
 * Understandings of skills (p. 133) "Units and courses that focus on skill development need to explicitly include desired understandings. In other words, the learner should come to understand the skill's underlying concepts, why the skill is important and what it helps to accomplish, what strategies and techniques maximize its effectiveness, and when to use them."
 * Traits of enduring (p. 136)

"... merely stating understandings (by either the teacher or the textbook) is the cardinal mistake of 'coverage' in the bad sense of the term: treating complex inferences as words to be simply taken in, instead of treating the understanding as a problem to be solved by good design of learning activities" (p. 138)