Abstract:
Chapter Three is dense with information and covers one of the most encompassing questions in the field of education, what to teach? The sheer vastness of content that needs to be covered in any given discipline is overwhelming, while the limited class time dedicated to the topics only exasperates the issue. The answer to this question lies in the Understanding by Design method. While national and state content standards, in their amount alone, have mainly only increased the amount of pressure on teachers to fit it all in, the UbD method uses standards in a beneficial manner. Tomlinson and McTighe redirect the process of content and assessment planning by looking at the big picture, backwards. UbD is broken down into three stages, Stage 1 entails identifying the goal of the curriculum. What are the general themes we want to follow and what should students know, understand, and be able to due with the knowledge? To identify just what these “big ideas” are the authors suggest going to an unexpected source, content standards. It is here the vague language of the standards can be beneficial to the task at hand. From these big ideas, garnered from the standards, the teacher must establish what the desired understandings a student should have in specifics to the topic and what essential questions need to be proposed to guide students to these understandings. It is important to note that differentiation plays no part in Stage 1, the goals laid out in this stage are concrete and remain pivotal to the success of the curriculum, and as well assures that all students are held to the same standards. In Stage 2 we determine what is acceptable evidence that mastery has been achieved in respects to skill, content knowledge, and understanding, and how we can acquire tangible proof (what type and method of assessment)? While this is a very quick and surface overview of Stage 2 it should be noted that the topic of assessment is a detailed one and takes up its own chapter (8) later in this text. The last stage of the UbD method, planning learning experiences and instruction, is where the true art begins. Teachers must be very conscious of the previous two stages while developing activities and assignments for a curriculum, assuring that they can properly lead students into a discussion of the essential questions and allows for appropriate opportunities to express evidence of learning.
Synthesis:
Cole P – “There is an enormous amount of content that students are supposed to, or often are ‘required’ to, walk away with…”
Russell W – “I find the aspect of content to be an extremely confusing but astronomically important one.”
Christopher V – “…it would be awesome if I could cover every topic in the textbook, but that is unrealistic to condense for one year’s worth of material.”
Ashley L – “There will always be more content than time…”
Ashley G – “Based on too many content standards and the heaviness of textbook content, how do we as teachers focus our units on the ‘big ideas’?”
Michael D – “There are 255 standards and 3,968 benchmarks and in order to accomplish all of them there would need to be an additional nine years of schooling added to the already existing 12 years.”
Matt P – “…students will basically be stranded at sea, lost in content, if we don’t find ways to break it down.”
Meghan H – “As a future teacher, I will have to deal with a mass amount of standards regarding what I can and can’t teach my students.”
Devin B – “I myself was ill informed of the bureaucratic nature of standards; the more I delve into the topic the more overwhelmed I become by the complexity and serious nature of them.”
Tyler M – “…it is becoming increasingly difficult to satisfy the standards set by the state.”
Tyler B – “With all of the content that is expected to be covered in the short amount of time teachers actually have with their students, even the most enthusiastic and dedicated teachers can easily get bogged down…”
It is fair to say that we all feel the weight of the task ahead of us. There is a strong awareness amongst us of the pitfalls of our future career; the bureaucratic and endless amounts of standards have come to dictate the choices that teachers make in their classroom. Reading the classes take on the chapter I encountered an empowered tone to the writings, we feel vested to break the mold and age old practices of the previous generations of educators and breath life into the system. The UbD approach was the lifeline that we were all so desperately looking for. The flexibility of the method was a common feature that appealed to the class. In addition the simplicity of the method was often noted, the shear genius in the backward design a brilliant approach. This chapter acted as a great introduction for all of us to the UbD method and did well to sell us on its need to be implanted in the classrooms.
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