Understanding by Design
Using Backwards Design Principles to Create Standards-Based Units
Welcome!
We’re glad you’re here…

Today’s Objectives
 Learn basic Understanding by Design
(UbD) elements and principles within
Design Stage 1
 Make a connection between our work of
prioritizing the standards, creating a
scope and sequence and applying that
thinking within a unit of study
 Reflect upon potential expectations for
you as in your role
Setting the Purpose
 Developing a basic understanding of
the intentional focus on Backwards
Design
 Building your confidence to be able to
use UbD principles to develop an
integrated unit of study
Deconstructing a Model
 Mixed Groups
 Please move to your pre-assigned
groups if you have not already
done so
 We intentionally created
purposeful groupings to maximize
strategic conversations
Deconstructing a Model
 Review Sample Early Childhood UbD Unit
 What do you notice about the structure?
 How do the Standards compare to the
Understandings and the Essential Questions?
 How do Knowledge and Skills add depth to
understanding the Desired Results?
 In what ways does the Learning Plan scaffold
student understanding?
Deconstructing a Model
 Facilitator Shares
 6th Grade SS & RWC integrated unit
 6th Grade SS & RWC Scope and Sequences
 What similarities do you notice between the
ECE and 6th Grade examples?
 What do you notice about how the Scope and
Sequence guides the Unit design
Deconstructing a Model
 Whole Group Share
 What are you noticing?
 What were some of the ways the Priority
Learnings and Scope and Sequence were
connected to the Unit Maps?
 What are some of the important elements in
the UbD framework?
 What might be some of the implications for
you in your role?
Understanding by Design

Using Backwards Design Principles to Create Standards-Based Units
Let’s deepen our
schema around the
UbD components a bit
more!
Cue the Video Now
Understanding by Design
Using Backwards Design Principles to Create Standards-Based Units
The Basics
of Stage 1

The 3 Stages of Design
1. Identify desired results
2. Determine acceptable evidence
3. Plan Learning Experiences
Stage 1 – Identify Desired Results
KEY: Focus on Big Ideas
 Enduring Understandings: What specific insights about
Big Ideas do we want students to leave with?
 What Essential Questions will frame the teaching and
learning, pointing toward key issues and ideas, suggest
meaningful and provocative inquiry into content?
 What specific Knowledge and Skills need to be acquired
to understand the Big Ideas?
Understandings and Essential Questions
evolve from the Big Ideas
Is it a Big Idea? Does it:
 Have lasting value/transfer to other inquiries?
 Serve as a key concept for making important facts, skills,
and actions more connected and useful?
 Summarize key findings/expert insights in a subject or
discipline?
 Require “uncoverage” (since it is an abstract and/or often
misunderstood idea?)
Some questions for identifying Big Ideas
 Does it have many layers and nuances, not obvious to the naïve
or inexperienced?
 Do you have to dig deep to really understand its meanings and
implications even if you have a surface grasp of it?
 Is it prone to misunderstanding as well as disagreement?
 Are you likely to change your mind about its meaning an
importance over a lifetime?
 Does it yield optimal depth and breadth of insight into the
subject?
 Does it reflect the core ideas as judged by experts?
Big Idea “Starters” in Scope & Sequence
Understandings
What are Understandings?
 Understandings are genuine,
sometimes unobvious, important
insights we want students to leave
with about a concept and Big Idea
Misconception Alert
“Objectives” “Evidence Outcomes” “Standards”
are rarely stated as Understandings
 The following are NOT Understandings
 Students will understand the Revolutionary War and its causes
 Students will understand ratios and proportions
 Students will understand figurative language devices
Uncovering to the Understanding
“Students will understand the Revolutionary War and its causes”
Understandings
 Revolutions cause fundamental change in the balance of
power and governmental structure
 The relationship between the early American colonists and
their British governors shifted over time as the colonists
desired to be a separate nation
 Freedom and self-determination are values that many
people feel are worth fighting for
Examples of Understandings
 Great artists often break with conventions to better express what
they see and feel
 Price is a function of supply and demand
 Friendships can be deepened or undone by hard times
 History is the story told by winners
 F≠ms (weight is not mass)
 Math models simplify physical relations and even sometimes
distort relationships to deepen our understanding of them
 The storyteller rarely tells the meaning of the story explicitly
Essential Questions
 Frame the teaching and learning,
pointing learners toward the key
issues and ideas and suggest
meaningful and provocative inquiry
into content
Essential Questions
 Are arguable – and important to argue about
 Are at the heart of the subject
 Recur – and should recur – in professional work, adult life, as
well as in classroom inquiry
 Raise more questions, provoking and sustaining engaged
inquiry
 Often raise important conceptual or philosophical issues
 Can provide purpose for learning
Sample Essential Questions
 Is the market “rational”?
 Does a good read differ from a Great Book?
 To what extent is geography destiny?
 How important is the past?
 Is a scientific theory more than a plausible opinion?
 What is the government’s proper role?
Essential Questions in Scope & Sequence
Scope of Essential Questions
Overarching
Topical
(Program)
(Unit)
 In nature, do only the strong
survive?
 Why leave home?
 Are lions truly Kings of the
jungle?
 Why did pioneers head
West?
Provoking vs. Guiding
 A provoking question looks for opening up
thinking, varied and divergent answers –
“uncoverage” of important issues
 The question is more important than any answer
 A guiding question focuses inquiry and may
coverage on an unobvious understanding
 A guiding question ≠ a leading question: a
leading question points to an unarguable fact
Types of Essential Questions
Guiding
 How precise must the math
be here?
 What constitutes
“appropriate supporting
evidence”?
 What strategy is best when
you are winning a game
early?
Provoking
 Is an author or artist a
privileged interpreter of
his/her own work?
 Is it fair to let the market
dictate the costs of all vital
goods and services?
 Who should define mastery?
Design Tips
 Most units will contain a mixture of topical and
overarching questions
 Most units will contain a mixture of provoking and
guiding questions
 Don’t try to edit questions while developing them. Work
on maximal provocative value and kid-friendly language
after you clarify the question from the teacher’s
perspective
 Student questions belong in Stage 3 (and perhaps Stage
2) after you have clarified the point of the unit.
Knowledge and Skills
 Specific Knowledge
 Including vocabulary
 Specific Skills
 These are often found in the Grade
Level Expectations (GLE) and
Evidence Outcomes of the new
Colorado Standards
“Unwrapping” the Standard
James Popham’s Learning Progression Model
Prioritized Evidence Outcome
“Unwrapping” the Standard
James Popham’s Learning Progression Model
Describe the connection
between a series of historical
events, scientific ideas or
concepts, or steps in technical
procedures in a text.
“Unwrapping” the Standard
James Popham’s Learning Progression Model
Key Targets for Formative
Assessment
Stage 2 Readiness
1. Identify desired results
2. Determine acceptable evidence
3. Plan Learning Experiences
Understanding by Design
Using Backwards Design Principles to Create Standards-Based Units
During our next
gathering you will
work with your peers
to create the Stage 1
parts and pieces of
Unit 1 for your grade.
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