Plan with the end in mind by first clarifying the learning you seek
Last week I developed a Big Hairy Audacious Goal and a 3 column plan for an outline to a part of my course. The 3 column plan laid out learning goals, teaching activities and assessments as the key components of the integrated course design. Using Fink’s “A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning” the plan gave a clear path for designing a course. The worksheets made me evaluate the special factors that make the plan for my students individual to that of similar courses. This made me pay attention to the outside factors that can affect my classroom. Until I factor in the situational factors, I can not make a complete plan for my students learning.
This week I explored “Understanding by Design” (UbD) by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. This plan made me take a hard look at what I wanted the students to learn. The backward approach starts with communicating what your end game is. Why?- why are you teaching this unit? What do you want your students to learn and when those questions are answered then you start to fill in from there.
Three Stages of Backward Design
Stage 1—Identify Desired Results
What should students know, understand, and be able to do?
Stage 2—Determine Assessment Evidence
What will we accept as evidence of student understanding and their ability to use (transfer) their learning in new situations?
Stage 3—Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction
How will we prepare them to transfer their learning?
Fink’s and UbD design methods are effective for creating significant learning within a unit or course. I found both useful to walk though and make a plan for the unit course. But, I did find using the UbD framework easier to use. I think that though this masters program we have always started with the why. Simon Sinek's - "They don't what you do - they buy Why you do it." The UbD framework starts with the Why. Why are preparing this lesson- what outcome do we want? Since I feel like I repeat Simon Sinek in every decision I make lately, I really liked using the UbD framework.
References
Fink, L. D. (2003). A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning. Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Sinek, S. (2009, September), Start with why -- how great leaders inspire action | Simon Sinek | TEDxPugetSound. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA&t=11s.
Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design (expanded second ed.). Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.