Understanding by Design

Understanding By Design – Backward Design

Design needs to be content focused design versus result focused design. The aim is towards what performance goal do the readings and the discussions lead to. There are two “sins” which teachers generally indulge in, activity oriented design and coverage design are the two sins. Activity teachers are unable to give a satisfactory answer to the key design questions such as: What should students understand as a result of the activities or content covered? What should the experience or lecture equip them to do? How can the activities achieve the desired results? And in coverage sin, the teachers are so much under pressure of covering everything or the curriculum that they lose focus of student understanding and the misunderstandings that may arise because of covering too much in a rush. The interesting and meaningful activities which take time to implement are then discarded at the expense of coverage.

What’s the point? What’s the big idea? Is something that teachers need to keep in mind at all times when designing a lesson. The three stages of backward design are: Stage 1: Identify desired results; 2) Determine acceptable evidence; 3) Plan learning experience and instruction. Evidence must be gathered through a variety of formal and informal means of assessment. It can include quizzes, tests, projects, observations and dialogues.

It is like purposeful task analysis. It creates appropriate habits of mind to design understanding for students.

Understanding by Design

The teachers need to establish specific understandings and they must think of how can they achieve those understandings. The hands on activities should not be minds on that is it should be designed with specific goal in mind and the purpose should not be just fun. Coverage crisis is the other problem that teachers face when it comes to understanding by design as this stops the teachers from designing teaching for understanding. The teachers need to know what is the big idea? Design should provide clear purpose and explicit performance goals. What are they doing? Why are they being asked to do it? What will it help you do? How does it fit with what you have previously done? How will you show that you have learned it?

Three steps need to be considered by teachers to teach understanding by design: Identify desired steps (Teachers need to be clear about what they want to cover and how); Determine acceptable evidence (How will the teacher know that students have learned it?) ; Plan learning experience and instruction (What skills will students need? How will instruction be planned? Teaching is a means to reach the desired end result). Start with what evidence will the students show to show that they have learned what the teacher taught. Activity based must be result based.

What is a Webquest?

A Webquest is a technique which uses internet based activities within a learning activity of project and some of its features are that it involves a real life task, makes good use of internet, involves co operative learning and the research is open and student directed. It must involve creativitiy, judgement and higher order thinking skills. The activities designed must involve the students in higher order thinking skills so that the students get involved in application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

Enduring Understanding

Some of the features of enduring understanding are:

• · Uncovering through sustained inquiry
• · Applicable to new situations within or beyond the subject
• · Practically constructed by learner by practical application
• · Teachers need to select topics which students mostly misunderstand then delve deeper into these topics
• · Students are able to generalize and can find out the important strategic areas which are used in practicing the skill
• · Apply in different situations
• · It is a conclusion inferred from the given facts after analysis and synthesis

What is Cooperative Learning?

This reading is interesting because it looks at co operative learning from a number of different perspectives. Since we have already read about co operative learning in the beginning and also about the framework of co operative learning proposed by Dr. Budin so it was interesting to see in this reading how co operative learning is being propagated as being a better mode of learning than individualistic learning by different sociologists.

The reading also elaborates how different theories of education also emphasize co operation and the famous psychologists and theories like constructivism, Vygotsky and Piaget are listed here. Teh cognitive advantages of co operative learning for individuals working in groups are listed in The Outcomes of Co operative Learning. Very interesting to read as this really happens but it is something that we as teachers and even as students do not even think about.

The write concludes by pointing out the role of the teacher in co operative learning. Another reading to convince us that we must change our teaching styles in the classroom and the advantages are not contentious but very obvious.

Yasira