Understanding by Design

Starting with the end in mind, using the Understanding by Design's (UbD) framework can help ensure that curriculum, content, and assessment are aligned with the specific learning outcomes and complementary skills that we seek teaching to our students. UbD offers three stages of the design process, a set of helpful design tools, and design standards. These stages are: Identify desired results, Determine a method of assessment, and Plan instruction and learning experiences.

For each of these phases, there are several benchmarks to guide the course design process.

Stage 1: Identify desired results:

In the first step, the instructor must consider the lesson's learning goals, unit, or course. As Wiggins and McTighe suggested a useful process, which the instructor should ask these three questions:

• What should participants hear, read, view, explore, or otherwise encounter?

• What knowledge and skills should participants master?

• What are big ideas and essential understandings participants should retain?

Stage 2: Determine a method of assessment

In this stage of backward design, instructors consider the assessments and performance tasks that students will complete to demonstrate understanding and learning. We distinguish between two inclusive types of assessment—performance tasks and other authentic evidence. Key questions to consider:

• How will we know if students have achieved the desired results?

• What will we accept as evidence of student understanding and their ability to use (transfer) their learning in new situations?

• How will we evaluate student performance in fair and consistent ways?

Stage 3: Plan instruction and learning experiences

In this step, the teacher plan appropriate lesson activities that will lead to learning objectives identified in stage 1. Some critical questions that the teacher should consider:

• How will we support learners as they come to understand important ideas and processes?

• How will we prepare them to transfer their learn- ing autonomously?

• What enabling knowledge and skills will students need to perform effectively and achieve desired results?

• What activities, sequence, and resources are best suited to accomplish our goals?