UbDDI+Chapter+3+Block+2

//Chapter Three Reflection and Synthesis by Kyle Kuvaja//
//In chapter three of// __Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design__, Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe address the importance of determining what content is being taught, the conflicts surrounding standardization, and discuss ideas regarding the future of determining what content should be covered. Given that the school year gives a limited amount of time, teachers in the classroom are currently faced with the problem of deciding what content is important to cover and what is acceptable to leave out. To help address this problem, standards have been put in place to help give teachers direction. The 3,968 mandatory benchmarks that were meant to guide teachers are typically intimidating to educators (24). Researchers say that if thirty minutes are spent on each benchmark then students would be in school for an additional nine years (25). Other problems with the current standards include: complex wording that make them difficult to address and a narrow vision that makes the information required of the student to be mainly trivial. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, authors of __Understanding by Design__, believe that educators should use the content standards as a guide to understand what the “big ideas” are within them (26). The trivial facts and focused skills are taught while exploring the “big picture”. Tomlinson and McTighe discuss a curriculum designing technique that has been discussed since the 1940s: planning backwards (27). The three stages of planning backwards are: identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, and plan learning experiences and instruction. The first stage involves clear goals and essential questions that will have the ability to answer when leaving class. The second stage deals with understanding what will be used as evidence to show that a student has answered the questions in stage one. The third stage is about planning engaging activities that will lead students to show evidence of their learning. The backwards planning process seems to alleviate many of the problems associated with curriculums designed to teach to standardized content.

When looking at the impact that chapter three had on others in the class, many patterns begin to emerge. The majority of the class believed that there needed to be a procedure in place to help alleviate some of the problems associated with standardized content (mentioned above). Many of us agreed with Tomlinson and McTighe, the way that standardized content has recently caused teachers to center their lessons on narrow ideas and concepts. The class was enthusiastic about utilizing the three-stage backward planning process to help fix these problems. They felt that it makes sense to start with the [|curriculum planning] process with goals and move towards designing the assignments. Backwards planning, for some, was a way to help move away from the “narrow” assignments that only focused on the mandated standards to the big picture ideas surrounding content areas. One person in particular thought the [|UbD Exchange website] "sounded really fascinating". The UbD Exchange website contains many examples of [|UbD] formatted units.While some simply were willing to entertain the idea of backwards planning in their classroom, others were more accepting of this idea due to poor experiences. The poor experiences involved teachers who focused on specifics, while failing to make a connection as to why it was relevant. Lastly, the class mentioned that being introduced to the three stage process was already proving useful for the units that we are designing in class. Being able to read the three-stage backwards planning procedure in theory and then apply it in class gives it more meaning than either one of the tasks on their own.

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Tyler Oren
Chapter 3 of //Integrating Differential Instruction and Understanding by Design// is concentrated on content, that being what is taught. Authors Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe begin the chapter discussing a common problem shared by teachers everywhere, the tremendous volumes of text and information that must be taught each year, and the comparatively short time they have to cover every piece of it. In order to quantify the issues the authors share research covering benchmarks and common goals for over 160 nation schools, their research showed that if teachers spent only as little as 30 minutes on each concept students and teacher would require an additional nine years to attain an at best basic understanding of the material. So the question becomes what should be taught?  Tomlinson and McTighe’s solution is an adjustment to the scope of each benchmark to ensure that the most universal understanding is created, building scaffolding which can help to connect concepts and help students apply past knowledge to newer concepts, which in turn eliminates needless instruction giving the teacher more valuable time with their students. The authors introduce backward planning, a planning strategy that asks teachers to begin their lesson plans with the goal in mind and planning backward from there to acceptable assessment and finally suitable instruction an experience. While the authors admit the strategy has a definite “awkward” feeling as it breaks comfortable and familiar planning strategies this could be avoided by early adoption, before the habit sets. I hope to try this strategy out for myself and test its benefits in the classroom before I develop alternative habits that could hurt my teaching, if I find it to be helpful then I plan to adopt if for my own teaching plan.

Johnny Buys
Chapter 3: What Really Matters in Learning? (Content)  Most citizens, politicians, educators, and students understand there is an internal fight with education between content for standardization and content developed toward the learner. Content standards are now defined by “national subject area associations, states, and provinces in North America” (24). When these content standards are combined with standardization, “content is reduced to a series of ‘factlets’ and assessments are built upon decontextualized item,” effectively as Tomlinson and McTighe phrase it, “a laundry list to cover without a sense of priority” (25). They suggest that learning should rather be designed around “big ideas and core processes within the content standards” (26). Using essential questions as the framework for the curriculum, “facts, concepts, and skills are then taught in the context of exploring and applying the larger ideas and processes” (26). Formulating content around such questions creates a focus for the teacher to create around which meets both the required content standards while allowing innovation and individualization to surface in the classroom. This combination effectively meets both demands of the content battle suggested earlier.  Tomlinson and McTighe also propose a “three-stage backward design process” for developing curriculum (27). The stages are as follows: stage one, identify desired results, stage two, determine acceptable evidence, and stage three, plan learning experiences and instruction (27-28). Stage one uses the essential question developed from content standards to create learning and understanding goals. Stage two advises to create assessments that demonstrate understanding of the essential questions. Finally, stage three deals with the lesson design sequence and varied instruction. As teachers this model effectively works toward content goals and directs the formulation of curriculum centered on Universal by Design and Differentiated Instruction. This method also helps prevent teachers from creating “Activity Oriented” or “Coverage” Curriculum which dangerously focus too much on lesson instruction and avoid centralized goals.

Kelsea Trefethen
Chapter 3 of UbD/DI emphasized the importance of content rather than coverage. I have had teachers in the past who were more concerned with the quantity of material they were covering than the quality they were teaching it. As this chapter explained, often teachers run into the dilemma of having too much to cover and too little time. When that happens, how do teachers decide what to cover and what not to cover? The standards that have been created for various content areas are helpful guidelines, but still consist of too much material to teach in one course. Thankfully, this chapter had a solution to solving this problem. When standard are too broad break them down into smaller concepts. When standards are too narrow consider the big ideas that relate to that topic. Many times teachers try and cover too much material at once or teach the material in a way in which the information is not retained. This chapter presented a process, which limits those mistakes from occurring. It is referred to as the “three-stage backward design process.” The idea behind this method is to plan lessons with the end result in mind. For example the initial consideration would be, what is the goal of the class? From there you would ask, how do I determine if my students have met that goal. Finally, how do I prepare my students to prove they know the material? I am looking forward to using these methods in my classroom when I am a teacher. This chapter gave me a lot of good ideas for the unit I am planning right now. The UbD Exchange Website mentioned in the text sounds really fascinating and helpful. I am excited to go check it out.

Leanne Fasulo
The third chapter of //UBD/DI,// by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe//,// explains how the backwards design model should be used. While to a lot of teachers working backwards may seem strange this model creates lessons, and unit with the big ideas in mind. Teachers are expected to teach a large amount of material in a short period of time. By using this model it ensures that teachers are hitting the big ideas, and will get the essential content covered. The first stage ask you to start with those big ideas, and then work your way down to what kinds of questions students should be able to answer. Following that, in stage 2, teachers need to plan what kinds of evidence should be used to assess if the students have comprehended the material. Finally at stage 3 the planning of actual lessons occurs. These lessons should both be effective and interesting. As a future teacher it is interesting to see the chapter explain it to people who have already been teaching for years. I am glad that I have the chance to learn this method now instead of later. This way I will be much more prepared for when I have to plan units, and I will be sure I am planning them around the big ideas. The chapter makes a good point that lessons should start with goals, and what you want to achieve. I am sure that when I plan future lessons I will come back to this idea again.

Brittany Blackman
Chapter 3 is all about the content. The chapter goes into depth on how to choose your content and how to make your lesson plan. They introduce the idea of backwards planning, which is when you start with your goal and work backwards to your lesson plan. This allows for more goal-oriented work, and fewer lessons plans based off of textbooks, or based off of nothing. As a future teacher, the amount of content I will have to cover does seem scary. I can’t believe that they came up with 3,968 benchmarks! I have always wondered why some classes expect you to know some things that some people may have learned and others didn’t. I was just discussing this about my math class. I have had matrices in a previous Algebra class in high school, but no one else that I know has. Apparently my teacher thought that was an important topic to cover, while most other teachers didn’t. Another thing that jumped out at me was the standards versus goals. I remember in high school and middle school we had “benchmarks” that were confusingly worded standards that we had to prove we met through examples of our work. Now that I think about it that should have been the teacher’s job. They should have been proving that they made lesson plans around these standards, and we should have been trying to meet the teachers’ goals.

Evgeni Bouzakine
Chapter three covers problems all teachers seemed to suffer in my school. Teachers don’t have time to teach all of the benchmarks that are part of state level standards. Instead of going over all the essential parts of the lesson, some lessons get generalized instead. The idea of backward planning design, this model can be used to address content standards. I have not planned a lesson before so this was all new to me. It goes over what not to do in a lesson plan. The chapter covered how to make a backwards design lesson. There are three stages that are covered, first stage identify desired results. Stage two is for determining acceptable evidence, what understandings are needed for stage one. Stage three is where the instruction is designed. Here teachers will find out what methods to use and what activities. I want to be able to do all of these in my plan designs. It is important to teach the big ideas and the essential details needed. If teachers taught every single curriculum needed for each individual, it would take another nine years to cover what was not covered. There are a lot of standards but putting them in a way where they are all covered is going to be the challenge me.

Richie Johnson
Chapter three of //Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design// proved to be very interesting and applicable to me. One of the biggest concerns I have had when envisioning my future classroom was how I was going to meet all of the standards in my subject area while remaining fresh and inspirational. A teacher attempting to meet the many standards of their concentration could very easily become robotic-like, which would undoubtedly hinder every student’s ability to learn and be enthused in the class. So, after hearing of Marzano and Kendall’s study which revealed how getting every student to meet all of the standards is truly impossible, a weight of sorts was lifted off from my shoulders. While it is important to promote the standards of a concentration, teachers must remember that it is better to teach a few key elements well, than go over a bunch quickly and loosely. The correlation be state standards and student assessments is remarkable; as examined in chapter three, because assessment tests are based off of specific factual questions, standards are warped into straight answers to these questions. This, in turn, wrecks any sort of total comprehension to be given to the student, and instead promotes students to be able to remember specific facts without having any real understanding of the context. While I was in drivers education I had an experience similar to this sort; the instructor spent practically every hour of the class drilling the students with the answers to the test that would be administered at the end, without any sort of further explanation as to where the matter applies.
 * //Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design//: Chapter III**

Kalib Moore
Chapter 3 of UbD/DI discusses the importance of content in the classroom. Teachers simply do not have enough time in the school year to teach all of the information that they had planned and by the end of the year, the last bit of content and closure is left forgotten because the teacher ran out of time. Tomlinson and McTighe explain the idea of "planning backwards" throughout the chapter. This idea is made up of three stages in which you, "Identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, and plan learning experience and instruction." (Tomlinson & McTighe 27/28) In more simple terms, as a teacher, you need to know what you want your students to get out of your class. By looking at the big picture, you can then slowly work your way down to forming units and even further, lessons. I agree with the template that Tomlinson and McTighe set up because I had poor experiences in the past with teachers who did not fully understand the curriculum they were working with. In one AP class, because time was not taken as a priority with the planning of the course, we were not prepared to take the AP test because not enough information was covered on time. Our teacher was trying too hard to cover //all// of the material when he could have simply covered the important information needed to do well on the test. As a future teacher I hope to plan broad yet define units and lessons in which to better prepare my students for future courses.

Kyle Kuvaja
In chapter three of //UbD/DI//, we begin to develop an understanding of what content should be taught and how it should be instructed with the highest rate of success. Recently, standards have been put in place for each individual state. Many times these standards are either too broad and offer no direction or are too narrow in focus, coming off as trivial. The standards make it difficult on textbook companies who try to meet the needs of all the various standards. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, authors of //Understanding by Design//, proposed that the standards should be looked at differently. They believed that instead of teaching the standards as is, educators should be focused on the “big ideas” within. In order to teach these ideas, Tomlinson and McTighe, believe that a backwards form of curriculum planning should be in place. This involves “identifying desired results”, “determining acceptable evidence”, “plan learning experiences and instruction”. Backward planning avoids activity based learning early in education and textbook coverage based learning later in education. Planning is usually designed or units. When units are designed in this way then lessons that follow are usually more purposeful and improved. Wiggins and McTighe designed a template used in the development of a curriculum. The template is not a rigid, step-by-step instructional tool, but rather something to adapt as a “way of thinking”. Being a current student, I have been exposed to many classes that have had difficulty determining what was and what not useful information. Wiggins’ and McTighe’s insight into developing a curriculum based on the standards is brilliant. Rather than abandoning the standards all together, they have proposed looking at them in a new way. They have completely changed my outlook on dealing with problems in developing a curriculum. My classroom will be more focused on looking at the needs of the student, assessing those needs, and then following through.

Christina L Quach
Chapter 3 talked about designing units backwards using the backwards design model. It is important to be clear about what students are going to get out of a class so working backwards allows teachers to base their units and lessons so that they are staying focused and on track. The backwards design model also helps teachers stick to important content standards that are required by the state. The model also lays out how a teacher will grade the students. This way no matter what way the student presents their understanding and learning of the content, teachers can fairly grade each style because they are being consistent with assessing. The units that we are designing right now are being formed by using backwards design. I think this is a great way to make sure that content and standards are being met. It also makes a lot of sense because when you have a clear goal in mind, backwards design can really help make sure that every step that is taken to reach that goal contributes and is clear. It reminds me of when I used to do mazes, and if it was a hard one I would start at the end because I would have already seen where I was going to end up. While designing units and lessons when I am a teacher, backwards design will be very helpful for me and my students. Like the book said, this will make sure that I am not only ensuring my students understand what I am teaching, but it will also make sure that I am teaching in a way that is fair and understandable to all of my students.

** Cyril Lunt **
This chapter dealt with the content of learning. It begins with the authors showing examples of what we currently do in curriculum in America. We either focus on a very narrow interest area, such as comparing the Indus Valley and Yellow River civilizations to one another, or a hyper broad area of interest, like looking at the aesthetics of art. They call this the "mile-wide, inch deep" approach (pg. 25). The authors suggested various ways to either reel in the subject, or offer ways to make the subject touch on bigger issues. The next idea they propose is to work backwards while making a curriculum. They posit that this way, you can work on what they should know by the end of the unit, and then figure out what to show them so that they can reach your goals for them.

From what I've seen, I have to agree with Tomlinson and McTighe. Many teachers I've had over my education career have taken to the "mile-wide, inch deep" treatment of units. One professor of mine, a mathematics professor, focused solely on spreadsheets, we didn't even move past the first unit. We just continued to make graph after graph. However, I've also had teachers and professors that have taken to Tomlinson and McTighe's suggestions and have made well rounded units.

I also have to agree with them that working backwards for a unit is a lot easier than going from the beginning. If we want students to learn anything from a unit, we need to make sure that how we get there is as important as the ending. While activities and games are fun, if they aren't actively working towards your goal, you may just want to cut them from your unit.