Understanding by Design
Curriculum, instruction and assessment design impacts student understanding.

Workshop Description
Based on the work of the Grant Wiggins' and Jay McTighe's ASCD resource series, Understanding by Design (UbD), participants will learn how to design powerful and practical curriculum unit designs that yield a greater likelihood of student understanding.

Participants will learn:

• essential aspects of exemplary understanding=based lesson design and how they differ from traditional curriculum design;
• how the six facets of understanding yield a more robust design of curriculum, instruction and assessment;
• how the three-step alignment approach of "backward design" yields a greater likelihood of effective student achievement;
• how essential questions provide a clearer conceptual focus for meeting learning goals and;
• how UbD Design Standards and peer review provide an objective lens for valid and elegant lesson design.

As a result of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Align curriculum, instruction and assessment design utilizing Ohio Academic Content standards
• Craft and review Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions
• Draft a UbD unit utilizing the three-step "backward design" process (to also include rubric and instructional sequence organizer)

Example of Introductory Workshop Schedule

Day 1-2
Beginning with the End in Mind

Enduring Understanding
Curriculum, instruction and assessment design impacts student understanding; excellent design is a function of understanding the intent of design (form follows function).

Essential Questions
What is understanding? What is good design?

Knowledge and Skills
UbD template overview
Facets of Understanding

Day 2-3
Thinking Like an Assessor

Enduring Understandings
Good teaching is inseparable from good assessing.
An effectively designed assessment system provides multiple checkpoints for evidence of understanding.
The quality of assessment design directly effects the degree of resulting evidence - robust or scarce.

Essential Questions
What are the goals of an effective assessment system; what should a truly effective assessment system help us accomplish?
How does assessment design provide evidence of student understanding?
How can evidence of student understanding be reported?

Knowledge and Skills
Stage II - Determine Acceptable Evidence
Generating Assessment Ideas
Constructing Performance Tasks utilizing GRASPS
Rubric Construction

Day 4
Engaging and Effective Instruction

Enduring Understandings
Effective instructional practices are engaging and aligned to achievement targets.

Essential Questions
What is effective and engaging instruction?

Knowledge and Skills
Stage III - Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction
WHERE Template and calendar
Using the Backward Design Process (Stage III- video)
Assessing Elements of UbD Design
Design Standards
Peer Review

Understanding By Design Resources

ASCD Understanding By Design Exchange

Please contact Rita Glavan, Gifted & Talented Coordinator, at Rita.Glavan@fcesc.org for more information.