Meaningful, Transferable, and Purposeful Understanding

...meaningful, transferable, and purposeful understanding: • Meaningful: The understanding is relevant to the students’ lives and needs. Students connect with the learning. • Transferable: The understanding fosters creative problem-solving and application. Students can apply their understanding to unique and out-of context situations. • Purposeful: The understanding is focused. Students know that the understanding has value and a function.

 UbD Three-Stage Template

To help educators start with the goal, rather than the learning activity, UbD employs a three-stage template. • Stage 1—Identify desired results: In the first stage, you consider your big ideas and learning goals and prioritize them. • Stage 2—Determine acceptable evidence: In the next stage, you “think like an assessor” (p. 18) to select the means for collecting and validating evidence students grasped your learning goals. • Stage 3—Plan learning experiences and instructio...

 WHERETO Mnemonic for Lessons

Learning Activities: What learning experiences and instruction will enable students to achieve the desired results? How will the design W = Help the students know Where the unit is going and What is expected? Help the teacher know Where the students are coming from (prior knowledge, interests)? H = Hook all students and Hold their interest? E = Equip students, help them Experience the key ideas and Explore the issues? R = Provide opportunities to Rethink and Revise their understandings...

 Knowledge VS Understanding

Knowledge understanding The facts The meaning of the facts A body of coherent facts The “theory” that provides coherence and meaning to those facts Verifiable claims Fallible, in-process theories Rightor wrong A matter of degree or sophistication I know something to be true I understand why it is, what makes it knowledge I respond on cue with what I know I judge when to and when not to use what I know  

 The Six Facets of Understanding

Explanation: Sophisticated and apt theories and illustrations, which provide knowledgeable and justified accounts of events, actions, and ideas. Why is that so? What explains such events? What accounts for such action? How can we prove it? To what action is this connected? How does this work? Interpretation: The act of finding meaning, significance, sense, or value in human experience, data, and texts; to tell a good story, prove a powerful metaphor, or sharpen ideas through an editorial. ...

 How Big Ideas are Revealed

Big ideas are typically revealed via: • Core concepts (migration, function) • Focusing themes (good vs. evil) • Ongoing debate/issues (nature vs. nurture) • Illuminating paradox/problem (freedom vs. responsibility) • Organizing theory/principle (less is more) • Underlying assumption/perspectives (Occam’s Razor) • Key questions • Insightful inferences from facts