Powerful Curriculum Design Using UBD

​When I first started teaching in this school district, the buzzword was BAM or Backward Assessment Model.  I grew to detest this term, because how it manifested itself at my school at the time was that everyone teaching the same class was expected to have a common assessment and were expected to be teaching more or less the same thing.  Several teachers got in trouble for not being on the same page at the same time.  In my quest to figure out how to develop quality curriculum instruction, I finally understand the power of backward design through reading Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe.  This book makes a strong argument for quality curriculum design through a focus on student understanding.  The book spends a lot of time deconstructing what it means to understand and in the process what it means to teach and learn.  Wiggins and McTighe capture what it means to understand in the following statement, “To have understood means that we show evidence of being able to transfer what we know.  When we understand, we have a fluent and fluid grasp, not a rigid, formulaic grasp based only on recall and ‘plugging in’” (p. 7).  Wiggins and McTighe argue that there are six facets to understanding:  explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge.
One idea in the book that really hit home to me was what the book calls “the twin sins of traditional design”.  These two sins are activity-oriented design and coverage design.  Both are equally bad.  The first is an emphasis on hands-on activities that students might find engaging and fun, but don’t require students to learn any major concepts.  The second concept is coverage where teachers try to cover everything in a textbook our curriculum guide and end up covering nothing of substance.  Neither help students to understand and learn.
Understanding by Design lays out a clear format for curriculum design that can help anyone build rich curriculum.  The three stages of backward design are:

1. Stage 1:  Identify Desired Results- What should a student know, understand, and be able to do?  What content is worthy of understanding?  What enduring understanding are desired?
2. Stage 2:  Determine Acceptable Evidence-How will we now if students have achieved the desired results?  What will we accept as evidence of student understanding and proficiency?
3. Stage 3:  What enabling knowledge (facts, concepts, principles) and skills (processes, procedures, strategies) will students need in order to perform effectively and achieve desired results?  What activities will equip students with the needed knowledge and skills?  What will need to be taught and coached, and how should it best be taught, in light of performance goals?  What materials and resources are best suited to accomplish these goals?

I am beginning to create my first unit lesson plan based using the UBD template.  I signed up for the UbD Exchange website, but wasn’t impressed by what I saw so far.  I highly recommend the Understanding by Design Professional Development Workbook that has tons of activities to help you create a unit based on the principles of Understanding by Design.
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