UbDDI+B2+Chapter+3

Chapter 3 Analysis by: Ryan Pelletier
Abstract: The standards that students are expected to know from the national and state requirements are so vast and strenuous. It is impossible for a student to learn it all. “An additional 15,465 hours (approximately nine more years of school) would be required for students to learn them all!” (UbD pg. 25) This chapter discusses the methods teachers can use to help handle this incredible amount of standards. Teachers need to pick apart a topic, and pull out what they think the students need to know in order to understand the “big idea”. By [|**planning**] backwards you put the subject into three stages. 1) You have to identify desired results and consider the goals. 2) Determine acceptable evidence that will prove that the students met the targeted goals of the material. 3) Plan learning experiences and instruction for the class. Now that one and two are complete you are able to construct a plan to incorporate curriculum into the first two stages. With all three stages completed in the correct order a teacher should be able to meet many of the required standards, and still have a differentiated classroom. The main logic of backwards design is that evidence derives from goals. Synthesis: It seemed like the class was not that nervous to meet all the national and state requirements. I would have thought that more of us would be terrified of the expected workload. Everyone seemed to have a good idea of how to [|**effectively use backward design**]. A lot of us took the information from the chapter and related it to how we can efficiently plan lessons and assess our students. Others talked about he importance of knowing “what really matters in learning”. We learned how to shorten or lengthen certain topics. Some standards are far to broad, and some are too redundant. As teachers, we need to have the ability to manipulate things so that they are interesting to the students, while still having meaning.

Chapter Three Analysis by Linda McLaughlin
Abstract: This chapter stressed the importance of meeting standards and effectively and efficiently planning and teaching your content area. The biggest idea that was discussed in this chapter was the idea of [|planning backwards]. When planning backwards, the big idea is to start with choosing what the goals you want to meet are, and then deciding how to achieve these goals. This is a good way to teach the essential parts of a required standard. Once the goals have been established, you must then plan on how to assess your students to ensure that they have reached a level of understanding in meeting that goal. Then, you plan how you want to go about teaching the lesson so that the students can engage in their learning, and have certain experiences to help them reach the goals of the lesson. Lesson plans are a teacher's best tools because it covers all aspects in how to really reach students and help them reach their full learning potential. Synthesis: I think we were all fairly content with the idea of [|backwards planning]. It seems that a lot of people feel that it's going to take some getting used to, but that's natural. It's going to be an effective tool for us to use and reach the best of our ability as teachers. I think the one thing that really seemed to be common was that we all realize the power we have as teachers, just by creating lesson plans. We have the power to determine what is important to learn, how they're going to learn it, and making sure it meets state and national standards. It's a huge responsibility. toc

Kassaundra
Chapter 3: What Really Matters in Learning? (Content) States and associations have set standards and milestones that each student K-12 must meet but these standards and milestones can be overwhelming and often very specific. It is helpful to break these standards of content down into big ideas. When I read the first couple of paragraphs discussing standards it truly made me nervous thinking about all of the concepts I am suppose to teach my future students in such a short time. To get these big ideas across it is helpful to use Backward Planning. This method consists of three steps, which include identifying the results that are desired, deciding what is pertinent evidence that a student has reached the desired results and then planning the instruction. This way of unit design helps to avoid activity and coverage oriented teaching. Personally, I tend to think of the assessment side of things first so this design will take a little getting use to. The good thing though is that a template has been devised to help with this design and I really like using templates to visualize and organize my thoughts. Backward design and Differentiated instruction should go hand in hand but not all sections of Backward design should be differentiated this includes the first step of deciding the desired results.

Charli Sayward
There was a lot of information about how to efficiently plan lessons and assess students based on what the required standards are. The most interesting approach was the backward planning method, which calls for deciding what the final goals are, then deciding how to meet them. After knowing what students should be learning, teachers should find a way that is best to assess them on their learning. Teachers can decide what lessons to teach based on what they want on their tests. I’ve realized I tend to use this backward method when organizing my assignments and figuring out which ones to do first. I organize my assignments in order of when they are due, and then I go through which steps are required for each of them. I look at the big picture and narrow my tasks down. I will definitely like using the backward planning method as a teacher someday since it will help keep me focused on what I should be teaching based on what my goals are.

Taylor Kemp
This chapter talks about how learning requirements and standards influence the way teachers create their lessons. Often times the standards are extremely general or very specific. This causes problems when making the lesson plans. A way to avoid this is by planning backwards. This involves steps or precautions that make you think in a different way. This also helps to avoid "activity-orientated" instruction as well as "coverage" both of these are not ideal forms of teaching. How this will impact my classroom is that I will make my lessons by the backwards method. I do not want my lessons too broad or too narrow, but i still have to cover the required standards. I will take into account the many great tips this chapter has provided.

Matt Towle
 Chapter 3 discussed the ways that educators should handle the standards of their particular state or province. Because it can be difficult to stick strictly with the standards (due to time constraints, etc.) the authors suggested another route. By using the backward design process one can more easily teach the essential parts of each standard. It is considered "backwards" because you begin by outlining the required understandings, followed by deciding what will be necessary for assessment and finally begin planning the unit itself.  This will impact me in my classroom because it offers a very efficient way of planning units. Using this design tool, I will be able to create units that will be rich in content while still achieving the desired goals. By focusing on the "big ideas" of a standard, the information can be conveyed to students in a more informative way.

**Jenn Baum**
Chapter 3: What Really Matters in Learning? (Content) In this chapter I learned some concepts of planning units and lessons backwards. In order to ensure that you teach students the intended concepts and ideas that you planned, it helps to first identify the goals and expectations for your class. Then as a teacher, you have to plan on how you will assess your students and how you will determine that they understand and have met the desired goals. To complete the backward planning technique, you have to lastly plan out how the students will learn about the material and what kinds of experiences they will have in order to get to the desired goals. This technique seems like a really useful tool in thinking about making units for my classes. By having a final goal in mind, it would be easier for me to help guide my students as well as be more flexible for the various learners in the class. As long as all the students are able to get to the desired goal, it would not matter how they got to that point. It is in this way that I will be able to include differentiation into my lessons.

One of the most important tools at a teacher’s disposal is the lesson plan. The lesson plan is made of the three stages that consist of deciding on the content of the lesson, deciding on how to assess the students on what you’ve decided to teach and plan the instruction and experiences. This is a vital skill to learn because this will be needed for every lesson that I will teach in the future. Each stage is important because it covers all the aspects of teaching that lesson will be, starting at what you hope they will take from the lesson to how you will assess what they actually took from the lesson. In this chapter, the author talked about the standards that we will have to meet. This will be important in my classroom because I will have to adapt my lesson plans to meet the Maine Learning Standards.

Alyssa Wadsworth
I have always known that students are required to meet standards, and that teachers aren’t given enough time to teach their students everything they need to know. However, reading about how teachers decide what to teach their students and what to ignore while teaching their students physically hurts me. I feel like I relied on the system of education we have in this country to figure out a compromise but in the end teachers only have time to give their students enough to barely meet state and national standards. This impacts my students because I will be given a bunch of standards and, as long as my students can meet them, I will be the one determining what they learn and how they meet the standards I am given for them; I decide what is essential. Teaching seems to be about creativity, assessment, and differentiated teaching—though there are many other components to teaching, these seem to be basic concepts and I do not know yet how to put them all together.

Erin
In Chapter 3: What Really Matters in Learning? (Content), the authors describe how to create standards for the class. The standards are baselines as to what you want to teach to the class. One of the sections illustrates how to shorten standards that are too broad and how to lengthen statements that are too redundant. The creations of the statements will be particularly difficult for those teaching history or science because those subjects are expanding faster than other subjects. I feel that this still does deal with my content, math, because it would be helpful to have a list of goals that I plan to teach my students so I can stay on track. The worksheet in the text is very similar to the worksheet we are putting together for our class. It tells us to list the goals and what we want our future students to comprehend by the end of the lesson. In one of the frequently asked questions within the chapter, it was asked how teachers could identify a “big idea” in the curriculum. The teacher must ask themselves these questions about points in the curriculum to determine if the point is relevant enough to teach: “Why exactly are we teaching ___? What do we want students to understand and be able to do five years from now? If this unit is a story, what’s the moral?” (p. 32). These are important questions I plan on asking myself when making lesson plans or planning out my curriculum.

Darcie
The one thing that stood out to me the most in this chapter was at the end where it said that “how students demonstrate proficiency can be responsive to students readiness, interest, and/ore mode of learning…” (UbD p. 35). What I learned from this was that if the student is doing very well assessment wise with the way that they are being taught in the classroom, than you know that they learn best that certain way. But, that just because some students do well with that learning style, the teacher needs to mix it up, and continuously teach different ways, so that all students in the classroom have the chance to succeed in their own way.

Megan Wallace
I learned just how expansive the requirements are for what I need to teach to my students. These requirements are sometimes too broad and too specific at the same time. While I did know about the backwards planning technique before now, I now realize how necessary it is when there is so much that I need to cover. When I get my own classroom I intend on making sure that my students truly learn that material. I also plan on seeing if there is a teacher organization at the school which helps determine the standards that the students will be held to. Even if I cannot join I will still see if I can observe and give opinions so I can help my students.

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Linda McLaughlin
//Chapter Three: What Really Matters in Learning? (Content)// This chapter focused on how to create effective lesson plans, and the different components that are necessary to do this. It seems that the most efficient way to create a lesson plan is by planning backwards. This is made up of three parts. First, we need to review our goals, content standards, and expectations to determine what we want to get out of the lesson. Second, it is necessary to figure out how we want to assess the students to see if the learning has been accomplished. Lastly, we plan how we are going to teach the material to our students. This impacts me because it will help me plan a focused lesson plan that meets the standards. This will impact my classroom because it will, hopefully, help my students become successful learners.

Kaitlyn Haase
Chapter 3: What Really Matter in Learning? (Content) In chapter 3, I learned about the importance of content and teaching. In too many classrooms, teachers are feeling the pressures of content overload; they don’t know what to teach and what to leave out. Textbooks and standards can contribute to this ongoing issue. In many textbooks the content is vast and does not include extensive details and examples. Some standards are too global, while other standards are too specific. A way to dissolve this problem of content overload is by “considering learning results in terms of understanding big ideas that are framed around essential questions” (pg. 26). The worksheet in the book looks nearly identical to the one we have been using in class to create our unit. Creating units using that backwards planning will help me teach for understanding, which will be beneficial for my students in not only the short term, but long term as well.

Bri Douglass
After class on Wednesday and talking about stage 1 of the backward unit design I read this chapter, which talked about much of the same thing. I learned that the goals or “big ideas” of the unit are not to be change based on the student. What teachers want students to learn shouldn’t depend on the student. No matter the student’s learning style or interests, everyone should reach the unit goals. This notion that the big ideas aren’t changed but rather how it’s taught depending on the student will impact me as a teacher and right now when I am creating my own “big ideas”. When creating my unit I will be able to make goals and then determine the details of how to teach each, including multiple intelligence.

Lyzz Stevenson
Chapter 3: The content of what you teach is very important. Standards have been set in each subject area to make sure that teachers are staying on track with their curriculum. Sometimes it can be difficult to meet all these standards and have your students know the material in depth. A good way to plan your curriculum so that your students can learn successfully and meet the criteria of the standards is to plan backwards. Start by identifying the desired results, then determine acceptable evidence and finally plan learning experiences and instruction. This will definitely affect my teaching and my classroom as the standards are mandatory to cover. But by using the backwards planning it will hopefully be easier.

Olivia
In chapter 3 of UbD - DI, there was discussion about how teachers are faced with the task of teaching standards and following a curriculum, and doing this with very limited time. After reading this chapter, I learned about the method of "planning backwards." Planning backwards is a way to actually teach students in the best way possible.

In teaching in this backwards style, the teacher must first examine the goals for the topic being taught, and determine how to meet the standard and requirements of the curriculum. In the second step, the teacher needs to assess what evidence they have for how they reached the goals in stage number one, and then documenting and validating that what was being taught was learned. In the final step, we as educators begin to think of activities to use to make sure that the first two steps in "backwards planning" are met.

After reading chapter 3, I felt that my future in teaching was influenced. I learned about what high school teachers should do to best use their time and to best present the material to my students. My teaching style will not be to simply teach the text book cover to cover, and I will definitely want to use the backwards planning template (Fig. 3.1, page 30) when I become a teacher.

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Kelly Steinhagen
I did not know previously that there was such a good way to avoid relying on the national standards. Of course I knew that not every teacher taught exactly how some standards described, but this particular planning backwards by design lays it out very well. The clear stages helped me visualize how it all comes together, and the frequent questions portions identified any missing pieces. It was important that they recommended using the standards as a guideline, but stripping them of the nouns that would be the "big ideas". The book also explains which areas of the template can be differentiated, which made me realize that I need to have solid criteria in some places yet be able to teach the students differentiated. I personally do not want to live by national standards, or teach my students in that way, so this backward planning will be very useful.