Teaching for Understanding
Backward Design
What does it mean to
“understand”?
•Read “Cover the Material, or
Teach Students to Think”
• List questions you have as a
result of reading that article
Activity-Oriented Planning
• Organized around topics
• Daily learning activities and
experiences planned first
• Assessments are aligned to the
topic
• Order of planning is: topic,
activities, assessments
Example of Activity-Oriented
Unit Plan
Topic
Westward
Movement and
Pioneer Life
Learning Activities
Assessment
1. Read textbook
section “Life on
the Prairie” &
answer questions
2. Read Sarah Plain
and Tall.
Complete word
search on
vocabulary
3. Create a pioneer
life trunk with
artifacts you
might take on a
journey to a new
life
4. Pioneer Day
1. Quiz on pioneer
vocabulary
2. Answers to
questions about
Sarah Plain and
Tall.
3. Show and tell
from pioneer life
trunk
4. Written unit
reflection
What’s wrong?
As a result of completing that unit
as a student, what would you
understand about pioneer life that
you did not understand prior to the
unit?
If you don’t know where you’re going,
then any road will get you there…
Teachers like to identify what we like
to teach, what activities we like to
do, and what kinds of resources we
will use. Without clarifying the
desired results of our teaching, how
will we know whether our designs
are appropriate or arbitrary?
Too many teachers focus on the
teaching and not the learning.
They spend most of their time
thinking, first, about what they will
do, what materials they will use,
and what they will ask students to
do rather than first considering
what the learner will need in order
to accomplish the learning goals.
-Wiggins & McTighe
Understanding by Design
Backward Design
1.Identify the desired
results.
2.Determine acceptable
evidence.
3.Plan learning experiences
and instruction.
Identify the Desired Results
Established Goals
Understandings
Essential Questions
Knowledge
Skills
Established Goals
Iowa Core Curriculum
National Standards
Examples:
• Read for a variety of purposes and across content areas.
ICC Reading, Grades 9-12
• Understand, analyze, represent, and apply functions. ICC
Math, Grades 9-12
• Understand and apply knowledge of the cell. ICC Science,
Grades 9-12
• Understand the use of geographic tools to locate and
analyze information about people, places, and
environments. Social Studies, Grades 9-12
• Understand and apply media, techniques, and processes.
ArtsEdge Standards, Grades 9-12
Understandings
Statements explaining big ideas that students will come
to understand as a result of their study, instructional
experiences, and assessments in a particular unit.
Examples:
• Students will come to understand that many pioneers had naïve ideas
about the opportunities and difficulties of moving West. (Social
Studies)
• Students will come to understand that an effective story engages the
reader by setting up tensions – through questions, mysteries,
dilemmas, uncertainties – about what will happen next. (Writing)
• Students will come to understand that in a free market economy, price
is a function of demand versus supply. (Economics)
• Communication involves the negotiation of meaning between people.
(Speech/Language Arts)
• Students will come to understand that an organism’s characteristics
are determined by a combination of genetic inheritance and
environmental influence that is unique to each individual.
Essential Questions
Understandings turned into questions.
Relevant and engaging to students.
Examples:
• Why did some pioneers survive and prosper while others did
not?
• What makes a story effective?
• How does a manufacturer set the price of their products?
• What makes communication effective versus excessive?
• Which is more influential in determining personality: nature or
nuture?
Knowledge
Content – what students will be expected to know as a result of
studying, participating in learning experiences, and completing
assessments during the course of the unit.
Examples:
• Hardships faced by early settlers; resources available to early
pioneers
• Characteristics of effective stories; what elements of a story make
it personally appealing
• Relationship between supply and demand; factors affecting supply
and demand
• Characteristics of effective oral, written, and visual communication
• Mechanism of genetic inheritance, including how inherited traits
are expressed
Skills
This is what students will be expected to do as a result of studying, participating in
learning experiences, and completing assessments during the course of the unit.
Examples:
• Explain how available resources would have attributed to the
success or failure of pioneers
• Predict price trends based on various ratios of supply and
demand
• Compose an effective written work to convey an argument
• Differentiate between genetic and environmental influence on
an organism’s characteristics
Determine Acceptable Evidence
• How will we know if students have
achieved the desired results?
• What will we accept as evidence of
student understanding and
proficiency?
• We have to “think like an assessor”
and consider up front how we will
determine if students have attained
the desired understandings?
What is “acceptable evidence”?
Not just the test at the end…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Formal and informal
On-going throughout the unit
Student self-assessment
Dialogues & conversations with kids
Observations
Projects
Performance tasks
Student journals and writing
Traditional tests and quizzes
Plan Learning Experiences and
Instruction
What learning experiences would be
most appropriate in order for
students to achieve understanding?
Planning Instruction –
Other Key Questions
1. What enabling knowledge and skills will
students need in order to perform
effectively and achieve desired results?
2. What activities will equip students with
the needed knowledge and skills?
3. What will need to be taught and coached,
and how should it best be taught, in light
of performance goals?
4. What materials and resources are best
suited to accomplish these goals?
What’s wrong with this picture?
1st Grade:
Middle School:
Biology:
HS English:
HS History:
“Apples” Unit
“Elections” Interdisciplinary Unit
Fetal Pig Dissection
To Kill a Mockingbird Unit
“Civil War” Unit
Comparing Units
Why do we accept that textbook
publishers (who are not located in
our community, do not know our
students, and, often, do not have
educational backgrounds) know the
critical content students must know,
the best way for them to learn it,
and how they should show that they
know it?
Unit Plan Assignment