This book introduces version 2.0 of the UbD Template and allows you to download fillable electronic forms to help you more easily incorporate standards, advance your understanding of backward design, and improve student learning.
What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.
What are "essential questions," and how do they differ from other kinds of questions? What's so great about them? Why should you design and use essential questions in your classroom? Essential questions (EQs) help target standards as you organize curriculum content into coherent units that yield focused and thoughtful learning. In the classroom, EQs are used to stimulate students' discussions and promote a deeper understanding of the content. Whether you are an Understanding by Design (UbD) devotee or are searching for ways to address standards—local or Common Core State Standards—in an engaging way, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins provide practical guidance on how to design, initiate, and embed inquiry-based teaching and learning in your classroom. Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of EQs in all K-12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. As an important element of their backward design approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment, the authors *Give a comprehensive explanation of why EQs are so important; *Explore seven defining characteristics of EQs; *Distinguish between topical and overarching questions and their uses; *Outline the rationale for using EQs as the focal point in creating units of study; and *Show how to create effective EQs, working from sources including standards, desired understandings, and student misconceptions. Using essential questions can be challenging—for both teachers and students—and this book provides guidance through practical and proven processes, as well as suggested "response strategies" to encourage student engagement. Finally, you will learn how to create a culture of inquiry so that all members of the educational community—students, teachers, and administrators—benefit from the increased rigor and deepened understanding that emerge when essential questions become a guiding force for learners of all ages.
How can today's teachers, whose classrooms are more culturally and linguistically diverse than ever before, ensure that their students achieve at high levels? How can they design units and lessons that support English learners in language development and content learning—simultaneously? Authors Amy Heineke and Jay McTighe provide the answers by adding a lens on language to the widely used Understanding by Design® framework (UbD® framework) for curriculum design, which emphasizes teaching for understanding, not rote memorization. Readers will learn the components of the UbD framework; the fundamentals of language and language development; how to use diversity as a valuable resource for instruction by gathering information about students’ background knowledge from home, community, and school; how to design units and lessons that integrate language development with content learning in the form of essential knowledge and skills; and how to assess in ways that enable language learners to reveal their academic knowledge. Student profiles, real-life classroom scenarios, and sample units and lessons provide compelling examples of how teachers in all grade levels and content areas use the UbD framework in their culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. Combining these practical examples with findings from an extensive research base, the authors deliver a useful and authoritative guide for reaching the overarching goal: ensuring that all students have equitable access to high-quality curriculum and instruction.
Curriculum design experts Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins have reviewed thousands of curriculum documents and unit plans across a range of subjects and grades. In this book, they identify and describe the 25 most common problems in unit design and recommend how to fix them--and avoid them when planning new units. McTighe and Wiggins, creators of the Understanding by Design® framework, help you use the process of backward design to troubleshoot your units and achieve tighter alignment and focus on learning priorities. Whether you're working with local or national standards or with other learning goals, you can rely on their practical and proven solutions to promote deeper and better learning for your students.
"Science education's two-fold challenge is clear: Schools need to (1) align their curricula with contemporary state standards and (2) meet the growing demand for STEM education. What's not as clear: how to meet the challenge if your school doesn't have the right instructional materials. STEM, Standards, and Strategies for High-Quality Units is designed to address both these needs. Thought leader and curriculum expert Rodger W. Bybee has assembled a guide to creating coherent, high-quality classroom materials that support the standards and STEM. The book provides practical background information and activities that can be adapted by individual teachers, professional learning communities, and professional developers. It starts with a section on making foundational decisions about your STEM unit's development. Later sections discuss getting started with preliminary designs, improving the designs with new knowledge and skills, developing the unit, and then teaching and further improving the unit as needed. Throughout, Bybee integrates contemporary educational strategies such as the 5E Instructional Model, backward design, and lesson study. "Because most states have new science standards, it only makes sense to incorporate various aspects of those standards in STEM activities," he writes. STEM, Standards, and Strategies for High-Quality Units is the book to help you do this. It's useful whether your school is developing a new STEM program, adapting current instructional materials, or creating new materials of its own"--
Aimed at the growing number of educators who are looking to move beyond covering the curriculum, Designing Authentic Performance Tasks and Projects provides a comprehensive guide to ensuring students' deeper learning—in which they can transfer their knowledge, skills, and understandings to the world beyond the classroom. Readers will learn how to * Create authentic tasks and projects to address both academic standards and 21st century skills. * Apply task frames to design performance tasks that allow voice and choice for students. * Design and use criterion-based evaluation tools and rubrics for assessment, including those for students to use in self-assessment and peer assessment. * Incorporate performance-based instructional strategies needed to prepare students for authentic performance. * Differentiate tasks and projects for all students, including those needing additional support or challenge. * Effectively manage the logistics of a performance-based classroom. * Use project management approaches to facilitate successful implementation of tasks and projects. * Develop performance-based curriculum at the program, school, and district levels. Authors Jay McTighe, Kristina J. Doubet, and Eric M. Carbaugh provide examples and resources across all grade levels and subject areas. Teachers can use this practical guidance to transform their classrooms into vibrant centers of learning, where students are motivated and engaged and see relevance in the work they are doing.
Provide students a clear view of what success looks like for any process, task, or product. What does success look like for your students? How will they know if they have learned? This essential component of teaching and learning can be difficult to articulate but is vital to achievement for both teachers and students. The Success Criteria Playbook catapults teachers beyond learning intentions to define clearly what success looks like for every student—whether face-to-face or in a remote learning environment. Designed to be used collaboratively in grade-level, subject area teams—or even on your own—the step-by-step playbook expands teacher understanding of how success criteria can be utilized to maximize student learning and better engage learners in monitoring and evaluating their own progress. Each module is designed to support the creation and immediate implementation of high-quality, high impact success criteria and includes: • Templates that allow for guided and independent study for teachers. • Extensive STEM-focused examples from across the K-12 STEM curriculum to guide teacher learning and practice. • Examples of success criteria applied across learning domains and grades, including high school content, skills, practices, dispositions, and understandings. Ensure equity of access to learning and opportunity for all students by designing and employing high-quality, high-impact success criteria that connect learners to a shared understanding of what success looks like for any given learning intention.
Millions of teachers worldwide use the Understanding by Design® (UbD) curriculum planning framework to create units of instruction that develop and deepen student learning. This quick reference guide from UbD co-creator Jay McTighe covers UbD's key tenets and three-stage "backward design" process and introduces the framework's design templates and quality standards. It also explains key vocabulary and explores essential aspects of unit construction, including* Focusing instruction and assessment on "big ideas" and essential questions;* Creating authentic performance tasks that reveal evidence of understanding; and* Designing meaningful learning events that help students acquire targeted knowledge and skills, understand important ideas, and be prepared to transfer those understandings to meet new challenges in and beyond the classroom.Featuring FAQs, indicators of success, and links to additional resources, The Fundamentals of Understanding by Design is for anyone looking to get started with UbD and for current users seeking a handy resource to keep their design work on track.8.5" x 11" 3-panel foldout guide (6 pages), laminated for extra durability and 3-hole-punched for binder storage.