UbDDI+B1+Chapter+3

Abstract & ﻿Synthesis
dylan stefani Abstract With a lot more information that the studentss need to be taught, the teachers get weighed down by much of the useless information. Planning backwards with the set goal in mind is where a teacher should begin. The "goals" are what teachers want the students to get out of the unit. Stage one of planning backwards involves identifying the key information a teacher wants the students to learn. Stage two is about how a teacher plans to show this information to the kids and how to assess it. Stage three involves actually manifesting instructions that the students follow to attain the information. There are many planning templates that a teacher can use shown in the rest of the chapter. Synthesis This chapter's "BIG IDEA" is all about [|planning backwards]and how to organize the content matter in a curriculum when there are just to many subject that need to be taught. Planning backwards is useful and helpful when trying to accomplish your own teaching goals. It takes creating your unit goals and setting standards to be able to organize what it is you're teaching. Planning with the end in mind is something people do naturally, but when it comes to teaching the final result might not be as clear. That's why [|content standards] should be followed. Doing this organizes the content to cover when a teacher is overloaded with to much information and is unsure of what they actually need to accomplish. If someone wanted to teach every subject they are in for a rude awakening. It takes an extra nine years to just hit every subject not to mention it in that time the students retained all the information. toc

Shila
This chapter addressed something that I had been curious about since day two of practicum, planning backward. I learned that it is a three step process that consists of creating the units goals and set standards. After creating the goals, backward planning has you decide how you are going to assess whether each student reaches these goals. The last step is then to make the lessons. I think this is a great way to make units because it doesn’t allow you as a teacher to form a unit around a single activity. I plan on attempting this numerous times in my classroom.

Ben
Chapter three of DI/UbD tells us about content. The biggest thing I learned from this chapter was with regards to the way the authors suggest teachers prepare content. I had heard about “planning backward” from the assignment to read chapters later on in the book, and I had intimated some rudimentary knowledge of what it was, but it was nice to see it addressed here. Essentially, it tells you to do something fairly intuitive: Plan your curriculum with the endgame in mind. Thinking about it, it seems silly to do it any other way. What are they expecting us to do, look at ways we have of assessing progress and then decide what we want to teach based on that? Regardless, it is good information to know.

Dylan Stefani
This chapter told me everything I already have read in //Seven Habits of a Highly Effective Teen//. Freshman year of high school we had to take a class of learning how to learn. The planning backwards advice does help. It gives you that incentive to work harder for the final result. By first seeing what you want in the end you can establish goals and create a path to accomplish the goals. This chapter also talked about how some standards are to open or to focused on one thing. I feel that standards are there basically for an outline of what needs to be accomplished and if you try your best for each student to accomplish these goals then you did your job to the fullest.

**Andy Shorey**
In chapter three of Understanding by design I learned that there is a lot of material to cover and not nearly enough time to cover it in. So knowing this the best way to cover the material is to try and teach "big ideas". There are content standards that have been developed by states and those are also important to follow. A good way to go about planning for these "big ideas" is to plan backwards by starting with what you want students to learn, then how you are going to assess the students, followed by how you are going to teach them the material. I found something that I had thought all along and that is that in middle school and elementary school teacher plan to many "activity-oriented activities. While not all teachers do this some do and the teachers are more focused on the activities than they are actually having the students understand the material. Another thing that teachers do more in a high school setting is that they just cover what may be in a book that is designed for the class. They don't go into depth as much as they should.

Olivia Wandelear
Chapter three aims to provide teachers with the skills necessary to control content in the classroom. Often, benchmarks and standards are either too broad or way to specific for students to learn any valuable. Likewise, they are “a mile wide and an inch thick,” meaning too many topics and being discussed without much depth. In this case, teachers need to develop a few big and important ideas for students to learn. They should do goal oriented backwards planning in order to avoid using the actual textbook as a syllabus. The last chart of the chapter taught me how to apply Differentiated Instruction to the planning templates we were given as handouts in class. The goal, or desired results should obviously not be differentiated, because you want each child to learn the same thing. However, the assessment and plans as to //how// the children learn should generally be differentiated based on their needs.

Erika
Teachers need to know what they are going to teach and what goals they want for their students to reach. Doing this is not an easy task. There is so much material that can be covered, and it must be narrowed down. This chapter was helpful in breaking apart how a subject matter should be approached in order for a teacher to introduce it to his or her students. The first step is to determine what the main ideas are that the student needs to learn and some questions that they should be able to answer. Secondly, a teacher must know how they are going to assess whether the students have learned what they desire for them to understand. Once the evaluation is determined, than the individual lessons and how they are going to be approached can be developed. This chapter had so much information, however, it is important that a teacher know how to go about generating lessons and units for his or her class.

Josh
Chapter three of Tomlinson and McTighe’s //Understanding by Design// discussed the struggle of teachers to know what content to cover when they are flooded with expectations. The major part that shocked me was the study done showing students would need nine more years of school to cover all the standards of an average state curriculum. It seems that administrators and politicians do not understand that they need to remove some requirements if they are going to add more. Another major part of this chapter that will be helpful was the discussion of planning for assessment. This will be important for me and my students so we are not stuck covering the same materials if the class already understands the material. Assessment is one of my major concerns; in math it is important to make sure you are in tune with the progress and speed of the class.

Dan
In this chapter I love how it starts off with the facts about not having enough time to teach students everything because it would require almost another nine years of school. Rather it says to teach key concepts and provide neither to narrow nor to broad topics but provide ones that are up to the benchmarks of the states or districts. I also liked the whole planning backwards concept because sometime when planning you can loose track of what you are trying to teach your students; this has happened to me in past school years. So if you start with what you want the students to understand and learn from your lesson you will plan everything around that and not loose sight of it in your planning.

Kasey
This chapter addressed the problem of content overload and standards in education. Many teachers often can be overwhelmed when trying to meet standards and teach too much content in a short time. Understanding by Design is a strategy to address this problem. By thinking about the “big ideas” and using essential questions to focus instruction, educators can meet their content standards. To design a curriculum that focuses on big ideas and essential question, using a backward design of planning is helpful. This backward design involves three stages; identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, and plan learning experiences and instruction. This model is definitely something I will use in the classroom. I do wonder how often veteran teachers use this concept. The book noted that “once they (teachers) become familiar with backward design through using the physical template, they develop a ‘mental template’-a way of thinking and planning”(Tomlinson & McTighe 32). Does this mean that they don’t use the physical template anymore?

Kyle Rines
This chapter focused on the organization of subject matter, and one of the first things that stood out to me was how researchers calculated that students would need an extra nine years of schooling to cover every subject! But by systems like Backward Design, designing your lessons and sticking to what is most important is a good way to stay on track and get the students to learn the subject material. This benefits me because learning how to stay organized and on task with material and hit only the essential parts of the subject is important.

Kay Sue Collins
This chapter discusses the backward planning model introduced in class on Tuesday. The reason for this approach is to focus all activities on the most important goals without getting distracted in order to have time for the essentials. The book clarifies where UbD leaves off and Differentiation begins as far as the planning is concerned.

Caitlin Alexander
Chapter 3 basically identified that often there is too much content in a subject area to teach. Therefore, different states create standards to attempt to narrow down the amount of teaching that needs to be done, but often times this has one of three effects: the subject area becomes or remains too broad; the requirements of the standards can be too vague and often interpreted in different ways by different teachers; the subject area can in fact be made too narrow by the standard requirements. Two ways to overcome this are to think of “big ideas” as suggested by UbD authors Wiggins and McTingle, and to plan backwards. Personally, after reading this chapter and reading over the MLR requirements, I find myself thoroughly believing what this chapter says about state standards often too difficult to make a clear lesson plan from alone. If a Social Sciences teacher were to try to cover exactly what was outlined in the MLR, it would take enormous amounts of time just to put together a unit, let alone make it fit into nine months of teaching. After reading the chapter I think that both looking back to big ideas and working backwards are both helpful in creating an effective curriculum or unit plan. Thinking of big ideas allows the teacher to find concepts that apply to multiple situations in their content area, and working backwards allows teachers to plan where they are headed with their curriculum before they start planning fun activities that could have potentially lead nowhere.

Courtney Burns
This chapter explains in depth the idea of forming units using the backwards method. This backward method will be especially important in my classroom because there is so much information offered in the world of science. This will help me decide what information is most important for my students. This chapter also stresses that as a teacher the goals I set for the unit are ones that will be achieved by all students not just the advanced students of those who struggle. It will be appropriate to consider the individual needs and learning styles of my students when I am planning the lessons and activities that will help students achieve the set goals.

Tim
When I begin constructing lesson plans and units I must understand that the distribution and learning of content should be the focus. I cannot let a specific activity I want to use or a specific textbook run the classroom. Both should be tools designed to assist in the learning process. Neither should be the driving force of my lessons. It is easy to set lofty goals in the classroom that will never see the light of day, resulting in disappointment or regret. Instead, goals should be set to foster success and renewed determination. By reverse engineering lesson construction to teach specific content, I can let the material speak for itself in regards to assessment. It should be clear to my students what I regard as important, and I will understand what they regard as important as well. Well-organized and structured lesson plans enable more seamless instruction.

Heath Booth
The overall theme of the book, thus far, continues to address the balancing acts that exist in the classroom in both the immediate and the long term. The curriculum is heavy influenced by the standards that apply in their region. The author states that even dedicating a modest amount of time to each of these standards would greatly increase the time an average student spends in school. Since teachers then ultimately will have to compress their lessons to start with, it would make little sense to waste time due to poor planning. The chapter introduces a toolset to establish goals and plan accordingly.

**Tyler**
What really struck me in chapter 3 of Ubd was the idea of using the content to engage the students and even yourself. also the 3 steps backwards plan is one I believe I could easily utilize in my everyday class to not only help my kids but myself. By allowing myself time for error through proper lesson planning and time management the students will be able to utilize the material in a much more beneficial way. In other words when I am in the classroom I am going to rework each lesson plan and take a step back to allow each student time to let what they have learned sink in.