Do you always put off lesson planning? Do you wait till the last minute to figure out what you will be teaching next? Do not fear, you are not alone; many educators put off lesson planning because they do not always see the fruits of their labor.
However, Understanding by Design (UbD) can help alleviate those feelings and help you create meaningful lessons that support your students master the content. You may be asking yourself, what is “Understanding by Design”? Understanding by Design is a three-step design process that focuses on helping students understanding and starting with the end in mind. While we all have many standards that we need to “get through” over the course of the year, UbD asks educators to weed through those standards and decide on what is more important for students to understand.
Important questions to ask yourself:
What is most important for students to know?
What should students take away from the unit?
How can students think critically about the topic?
How will I create assessments that showcase the students’ understanding?
Follow the age-old philosophy: just because students can show they know information, does not mean they can demonstrate understanding. Therefore, when planning, make meaningful assessments the go beyond lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy; ask them to create, evaluate, design, investigate, etc.
The second part of UbD is design. Design should go beyond separate lessons that do not have a coherent flow or a logical “how” and “why”. Students need patterns between lessons so they can see the bigger picture. Therefore, UbD is unique because it asks an educator to start at the end and work backward. When you know the last step, it’s easier to figure out how students need to get there. We often find one lesson and build an entire unit around it, but UbD is challenging that thinking by having you think purposefully about what you will teach, why you will, and when you will teach it.
When creating a UbD plan, there are three key elements:
Desired results
What skills and knowledge will students gain?
What essential questions will drive the learning process?
What is the end goal?
Evidence
How do I know students have mastered the information?
Think beyond tests and quizzes
Learning plan
What lessons, activities, and tools will help students achieve the desired results?
Avoid fluff and fillers!
How will I ensure all types of students are learning?
Is technology bridging the gap between the lesson and the desired results? Or making learning fun?
Remember, only choose projects, activities, and lessons that will help students achieve the end goal and not those that are flashy and fun. Do not get carried away, because then you will never truly achieve the purpose of Understanding by Design, ensuring students understand.
Helpful tips:
Start small! Pick a unit or two to start with. Do not bite off more than you can chew or you will get overwhelmed easily. You are retraining yourself on how to lesson plan, so it will take time.
Ask for help! Ask those who came before you for help. They will know the tricks of the trade and help you avoid pitfalls. Their mistakes will be your successes.
Reflect on your process! After you teach a unit, honestly reflect on what went well and what you can improve upon. Just because it did not work at first, does not mean that it will not work at all!
Good luck and happy planning backward!
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