I found the readings on Understanding by Design particularly useful as I am preparing to take the Praxis PLT next week (YIKES). The only prior knowledge I had of backward design came from sample question explanations in a Praxis practice guide. The timing could not have been better!
Chapter 1 began with a quote from the book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." "To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now so that they steps you take are always in the right direction." I have not read this book, however I have read "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens." The book was assigned to us in 9th grade, although I feel like it was somehow tied into my religion class? I can't remember. Either way, the book was great and I got excited to read when I saw the opening quote for the chapter. The book did not have so much of an emphasis on knowing exactly where you're going so you take steps that are always in the right direction, because let's face it, in 9th grade that's a pretty big nut to crack. However, after Habit 1 (Be proactive) is Habit 2, "Start with the end in mind." This Habit has stuck with me since 9th grade and applying it to teaching makes perfect sense! If you set a clear destination you then backtrack your way and find out how you will get there! The "defective" teen had no end in sight, went with the flow and wasn't very successful. Kind of like lessons I tried to plan in the past with no end goal in sight!
(Sorry for this rant, I just got excited! Here is the link to the book on amazon - you can take a sneak peak and check it out. It;s worth taking a glance at in the future, it could be something you could direct your students to if need be!) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
On to the good stuff - backward design. When I designed one of my first lessons, I had a nice template with neat boxes to fill in. I was excited to start but had no idea what I was doing. It was pretty much free reign. I could pick whatever topic, align it with some standards and fill the required amount of teaching time. I had no idea what I was doing. Once I had chosen a topic I was concerned with finding interesting activities for my students to enjoy and learn from, rather than first examining my desired results from the lesson. Eventually after much tweaking I caught on to this idea somewhat - although knowing these stages ahead of time most definitely would have not only saved me time, but it would have helped me to clarify my goal.
The application scenario of the health teacher using backward design, step by step, was extremely helpful. I was able to envision each step and could see myself working a lesson similarly. When the scenario got to stage 2 I starred, underlined and highlighted the statement, "Kids tend to focus on their races rather than on their learning. Perhaps the way I've used assessments - more for grading purposes than to document learning has contributed somewhat to their attitude." YES! This was almost my entire schooling experience! Teachers say "try your best," "do the best you can do" as if doing your best will get you some type of reward. What happens when you do your best and the answer is incorrect? You get a bad grade and the cycle repeats. The teacher here is reflecting on ways in which HE assessed his students and how he contributed to this attitude of needing the right answer for the grade. Determining how you will assess and thinking as an assessor will ensure that you are spending time on what's really important. We've all had that teacher who puts questions on the test that we have never seen before. Sure they intended to get to that content but something along the way didn't work out. Starting with the end in mind allows us to make sure the desired results are met through our instruction and planing of instruction. *SIDE NOTE: I also thought of a Jerry Seinfeld SNL skit that Emily showed me (I can't take credit, so thanks Ems!). SNL History Class Skit If you don't have time to watch, the students are simply concerned with their horrible quiz grades and not concerned with learning the content.* And why is this? Because too often teachers assess solely with tests and quizzes and regurgitation rather than assessing the connection with understanding and learning - learning in the sense of "something that should serve us in the future" as Bruner noted in 1960. Most of the time the only purpose those quizzes of regurgitation serve is a grade on a piece of paper. I felt this coincided with Module A and the idea that teachers impose understanding by good fortune more often that understanding by design where they throw content and activities to the wall and "hope it sticks." Overall I enjoyed the readings, although lengthy they were not difficult to comprehend and brought back a lot of memories of my entire academic career both good and bad!
Hi Amanda, first of all good luck on your upcoming PLT!I can see that you really engaged with the reading, much like yourself I was also required to read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens" and it sounds obvious but beginning with the end in mind makes all the in-between steps that much easier. "Try your best" as you mention is a good mantra, but way too overused. As you put it: "What happens when you do your best and the answer is incorrect? You get a bad grade and the cycle repeats. The teacher here is reflecting on ways in which HE assessed his students and how he contributed to this attitude of needing the right answer for the grade. Determining how you will assess and thinking as an assessor will ensure that you are spending time on what's really important." UbD forces us to be fair assessors as well as teachers, we have to give assessments that go along with the objective and standards in mind (not the other way around). Planning this way gives every student a chance.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the Seinfeld skit, the students are not engaged at all, we must be engaging throughout the unit not just giving them a final unit assessment. I like how project-emphasized UbD is, we are constantly engaging our students.
Hi Amanda!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I love the way that you write! While reading your blog post, I couldn’t help but feel that I was actually talking to you in person. You certainly demonstrated your enthusiasm and opinions about the readings, so nice job with that.
As far as UbD is concerned, I think that it’s a really solid approach to teaching and learning. Like you, I found the 5th grade teacher’s scenario to be very helpful. It was advantageous (for a future educator) to view this example of a structurally organized backward design lesson. Unlike you, I began working with UbD in our 406 class, because assessments/ evaluations are a challenge for me. That’s why I worked on developing engaging, meaningful assessments from the beginning, right after I chose a general topic to worth with—and I think we can agree that my second lesson was far better than the first! I understand that I have more improvements to make (and as an educator, it’s always important to embrace improvements), but I’m happy to have an understanding and appreciation of UbD right now.
Finally, thanks for sharing the clip of Jerry Seinfeld’s history lesson. I’ve seen it a few times before, and I think it fits nicely in your connection to the text. Humor is a great addition to classrooms, but the point of this scene is to analyze assessments on the teacher’s behalf. What I mean is that it’s not easy to create assessments that are evidence of students’ understanding. But like the UbD articles explicate, it’s necessary so that students can learn in their subjects—and as a bonus, many ideas are interdisciplinary and connect to each other. So, this makes learning useful and meaningful to students.
P.S. How did the Praxis PLT go?!
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