Understanding By Design
at IslandWood
Why UBD??
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Challenges educators to focus on concepts,
ideas and understandings in addition to skills
and knowledge
Provides template that is adaptable to a variety
of contexts including IW SOP and EEC.
Allows assessment to be central to the
curriculum design process and encourages
multiple types of assessment.
Aligns with Graduate Class on Curriculum and
Instruction
Results to Evidence to Learning Plan
Desired Results
Assessment Evidence
Learning Plan
Results
Identify Desired Results
Before Lesson Planning……
Desired Results
Big Ideas
 Enduring Understandings
 Essential Questions
 Knowledge and Skills
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Big Idea:
Stewardship
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Stewardship is action that arises from caring
and informed relationships in one’s natural
and cultural communities
Big idea – yes!
Enduring – yes!
Transferable – yes!
Requires uncoverage – yes!
Enduring Understandings
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These are at the heart of everything you plan
and teach.
Instructors must be mindful of the enduring
understandings throughout the teaching and
learning: during lessons, games, discussions,
meals, and adventures.
They will empower students to apply what
they have learned beyond the current context.
Understandings in the SOP Curriculum
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U1 – Learning can be joyful, empowering, and
inspire a sense of wonder.
U2 - Environment & community require many
interconnected systems
U3 – Choices people make can have positive
impacts on their environment & community.
U4 – Working well together enhances stewardship
& a sense of community.
Essential Questions
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What questions are you helping your students
to pursue?
How can you guide them in an inquiry that
enables them to construct their own
understanding of the enduring understandings?
How can you connect these with studentgenerated questions, which are also essential?
Essential Questions
Help students explore and develop
understandings
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Q1 How are the parts of environments
connected?
Q2 How do people and places affect one
another?
Q3 How can people care for themselves, their
communities and environments in ways that
enhance sustainability?
Knowledge and Skills
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The stuff that much curriculum is focused on..
We live in an information age where there is
more knowledge than we can know…
Most important as tools to enable learners to
grapple with enduring understandings and
essential questions.
Knowledge in SOP Curriculum
K1 Students will know that living things need food, water, air.
K2 Students will know that in a given place some organisms
thrive and some don’t.
K3 Students will know that organisms interact in various ways
K4 Students will know that changes in an organism’s habitat are
sometimes beneficial and sometimes harmful.
K5 Students will know that systems are made up of subsystems
and have inputs and outputs.
K6 Students will know that cultures throughout history have
changed and have been changed by their environments.
K7 Students will know that kids’ choices and actions make a
difference.
Skills in SOP Curriculum
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S1 OBSERVING: using their five senses and
emotional perspectives
S2 COLLECTING & RECORDING quantitative &
qualitative data, using varied tools
S3 PREDICTING, ANALYZING, INTERPRETING
and REPRESENTING information using creative,
scientific, and verbal approaches
S4 DEVELOPING & EXPRESSING perspective,
empathy, & self-knowledge
S5 APPLYING what has been learned to new
situations
Results to Evidence
Desired Results
Assessment Evidence
How will you know they are “getting it?”
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Journals:
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Discussions:
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Completed portions, amount of writing
Questions they ask, responses, focus
Behaviors:
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Enthusiasm for learning, curiosity
Treating one another with respect
Be aware of varied individual responses!
Assessment
FORMATIVE:
SUMMATIVE:
Why is assessment important?
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To evaluate what parts of our curriculum work
best to meet our goals
To help instructors assess their effectiveness
and improve
To show the effectiveness of our programs to
funders and the larger educational arena
The Design Process
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Identify Desired Results
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Determine acceptable evidence
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Enduring Understandings
Essential Questions
Skills and Knowledge
Desired Results
Assessment Evidence
Embedded assessment
Formative and Summative
Plan Learning Experiences and
Instruction
Learning Plan
Planning the Lessons/Experiences
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People
Place
Progression
Pace
Priorities
Matters of Understanding
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Big ideas or core processes at the heart of a
discipline
“Enduring” – lasting value beyond the
classroom
Transferable to other topics and inquiries
Requires “uncoverage”
Challenges educators to explore multiple
facets of understanding including explanation,
interpretation, application, perspective,
empathy and self-knowledge
Six Facets of Understanding
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Explanation: sophisticated explanations and
theories
Interpretation: narratives and translations.
Application: uses knowledge in new situations
and contexts
Perspective: critical and insightful points of view
Empathy: ability to get inside another person's
feelings
Self-Knowledge: to know one's ignorance,
prejudice, and understanding
Types of Evidence/Assessment
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Embedded Assessment – Part of the Learning
Experience. Kids are learning and illustrating
understandings at the same time
Formative – In each lesson, instructors have informal
opportunities to assess understanding.
Summative – Each day concludes w/ an activity that
can be used as an assessment tool…we emphasize
tools that are creative, project based rather than
traditional “test” type tools.
Good evidence gives instructor
the ability to assess students’
understanding
Learning Plans at IslandWood
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A general framework exists that aligns lessons
and activities w/ “GUQKS”
The flow for each field group shifts based on
group needs, instructor passions, weather
Solutions for planning a day?
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Go to question, understandings, skills and
knowledge you hope to teach
Look at assessment tool that will be used to
evaluate students’ learning
Plan core lessons, first (before locations or fun
stuff)
Ecosystems Curriculum
IslandWood School Overnight Program
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Summary: Using IslandWood’s ecosystems as a context for learning, this curriculum helps students
understand how they can become better stewards of themselves, their community, and the environment.
By learning about the ecology of diverse ecosystems and about human impacts on ecosystems, students
learn about the ways that their choices affect the health of their own communities.
Stage One: Desired Results
Established Goal: Through joyful exploration, students will develop an understanding of ecosystems, their
importance, and how people and ecosystems are interconnected. Through this improved understanding,
students will be inspired and empowered to make a difference in their own communities.
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What understandings are desired?
Students will understand….
What essential questions will be considered?
Q1
What is an ecosystem?
Q2
What does an ecosystem need to be a healthy system?
Q3
How do people and ecosystems change one another?
Q4
What can I teach others about ecosystems?
What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit?
Students will know…
K1
Nature’s ABC’s
K2
Ecological concepts such as habitats, adaptations
K3
History of human impact on IW Ecosystems
K4
The importance of both ecological and cultural diversity
Students will be able to…
S1
Identify and share ethnobotanical uses of many IW Plants
S2
Brainstorm potential consequences of human actions
S3
Problem solve as a group
Evidence of Understanding in Ecosystems Curriculum
Question
Desired Results
Assessment Activity
What is an Ecosystem?
K1 – Nature’s ABC’s
Sketch or mind map of an Ecosystem w/ ABC’s identified
What does an
ecosystem need to be a
healthy system?
K2- Ecological Concepts
K4 – Importance of diversity
S1 – Identify and share ethnobotanical
uses of many IW Plants
Solo Walk Writing Activity
How do people and
ecosystems affect one
another?
K3 – History of human impact on IW
ecosystem
S2 – Consequences of human actions
U1 -The interconnectedness of human
and natural communities
U2 -The impact human activities have
on ecosystem
Create an image sequence, through the lesson, "Times, they are a
changin'"
What can I teach others
about ecosystems?
U3 - By working together
cooperatively we can benefit our
human and natural communities
Water Color/ Letter to self/brochure
Venn diagram
All
S3 - Problem solve as a group
Instructor documents team-building activities with challenges and
successes; watches for evidence of application during other parts of the
field study.
EEC Enduring Understandings
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People learn best through immersion in meaningful
experiences, with reflection and transference facilitated by
dedicated, thoughtful educators.
People learn by struggling to reconcile new ideas and
experiences with their prior world views.
Respectful, compassionate interactions with others
empowers everyone to take risks and meet challenges.
The teacher is a servant-leader facilitating students’
engagement, inquiry, and construction of knowledge and
understanding.
The interconnected systems of environment and
community provide a meaningful, integrative context for
learning.
Being an outstanding educator is a lifelong pursuit.
Ecosystems Assessment
Acceptable Evidence
Desired Results
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Q2 – What does an
ecosystem need to be a
healthy system?
K2 – Ecological Concepts
K4 – Importance of
Diversity
S1 – Plant ID/Uses
Summative tool –
Solo Walk Writing activity
(In process, test period, future
rubric?)
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Formative tools – Questions
after Owls, Mice and Seeds
Soil Sleuth Journal
macroinvertebrate drawing
and questions.
Think about…Where?
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W- Where are we heading and Why? (from the
student’s perspective)
H – How will the students be Hooked?
E – What opportunities will there be to be
Equipped and Explore key ideas?
R – How will we provide opportunities to
Rethink, Rehearse, Refine and Revise?
E – How will students evaluate (so as to
improve) their own performance?