Course:CTLT Course Design Intensive/UbD Principles

Overview

Understanding by Design (2005) by Wiggins and McTighe] offers a model for design that places understanding at the centre. They propose that that a helpful way to think about understanding, what it is, how to design for it and how to find evidence of it in student work is to realize that it has various facets - much like the dimensions proposed by Dee Fink in his taxonomy of significant learning. They consider these facets as manifestations of transfer.

Draft Learning Plan

6 Facets of Understanding

Explain: provide thorough, supported and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts and data.
Interpret: tell meaningful stories; offer apt translations; provide a revealing historical/personal dimension to ideas and events through images, analogies or models.
Apply: effectively use and adapt knowledge in diverse contexts.
Offer perspective: see points of view; offer critical analysis; see big picture.
Empathize: find value in what others might find implausible; perceive sensitively.
Show self knowledge: perceive habits of mind that both shape and impede understanding, be aware of what is not understood and why it is hard to understand.

Key Ideas

Backward Design (3 part process)
Essential Questions
Core Ideas (Prioritizing Framework)
Design for Uncoverage
Understanding as goal

Planning Guides

Template for Understanding by Design Planning ( could be useful?)
Prioritzing Framework
Assessment plus Prioritizing Framework
6 Facets of Understanding - Rubric

Rubric

6 Facets of Understanding - Rubric

Learning Path/Guiding Questions

What learning outcomes have you defined?
What are the big ideas that are important for learners to grapple with in your course? Criteria for big ideas - few samples.
What are the essential questions that will foster inquiry/uncoverage? Criteria for essential questions - few samples.
What should students be able to know and do?
What counts as evidence of their understanding? Alignment.

Reference

Roth, D. (2007). Understanding by Design: A Framework for Effecting Curricular Development and Assessment. CBE— Life Sciences Education, 6(2), 95–97. doi:10.1187/cbe.07-03-0012

Wiggins, Grant P. & McTighe, Jay (2005). Understanding by Design. Moorabbin, Vic : Hawker Brownlow Education

Calder, Lendol (2006) Uncoverage: Toward a Signature Pedagogy for the History Survey. Web