Understanding Understanding by Design

Understanding Understanding by Design (UbD)

Remember when you were in college…
I mean…in college…

when you had to submit pages and pages
for 1 lesson…
and you got into the “real world” and had
1 box to fill out…
My first week story…

Though considerations about what to
teach and how to teach it may dominate
our thinking as a matter of habit, the
challenge is to focus first on the desired
learnings from which appropriate teaching
will logically follow.
Our lessons, units, and courses should be
logically inferred from the results sought,
not derived from the methods, books, and
activities with which we are most
comfortable.
Curriculum should lay out the most
effective ways of achieving specific results.
But many teachers begin with and remain
focused on textbooks, favored lessons, and
time-honored activities—the inputs—
rather than deriving those means from
what is implied in the desired results—the
output.
To put it in an odd way, too many teachers
focus on the teaching and not the learning.
They spend most of their time thinking,
first, about what they will do, what
materials they will use, and what they will
ask students to do rather than first
considering what the learner will need in
order to accomplish the learning goals.

Has anyone ever had a house built?
Has anyone ever built a house or had a
house built?
Anyone start out by pouring a slab of
concrete and start hammering 2x4s in
random points around the slab?
The first step most take is to browse
through photos of houses and floor plans,
and then hire an architect and then a
contractor.

How many people went somewhere /
anywhere this summer that you have
NEVER been before?
Did anyone set out and say, “I hope I get
there?”
How did you get there?
Curriculum should lay out the most
effective ways of achieving specific results.
It is analogous to travel planning. Our
frameworks should provide a set of
itineraries deliberately designed to meet
cultural goals rather than a purposeless
tour of all the major sites in a foreign
country.
We can best decide, as guides, what “sites”
to have our student “tourists” visit and
what specific “culture” they should
experience in their brief time there only if
we are clear about the particular
understandings about the culture we want
them to take home.
The appropriateness of this approach
becomes clearer when we consider the
educational purpose that is the focus of
this book: understanding. We cannot say
how to teach for understanding or which
material and activities to use until we are
quite clear about which specific
understandings we are after and what such
understandings look like in practice.
But many teachers begin with and remain
focused on textbooks, favored lessons, and
time-honored activities—the inputs—
rather than deriving those means from
what is implied in the desired results—the
output.
To put it in an odd way, too many teachers
focus on the teaching and not the learning.

They spend most of their time thinking,
first, about what they will do, what
materials they will use, and what they will
ask students to do rather than first
considering what the learner will need in
order to accomplish the learning goals.
Consider a typical episode of what might
be called content-focused design instead of
results-focused design. The teacher might
base a lesson on a particular topic (e.g.,
racial prejudice), select a resource (e.g., To
Kill a Mockingbird), choose specific
instructional methods based on the
resource and topic (e.g., Socratic seminar
to discuss the book and cooperative groups
to analyze stereotypical images in films and
on television), and hope thereby to cause
learning (and meet a few English/language
arts standards). Finally, the teacher might
think up a few essay questions and quizzes
for assessing student understanding of the
book.
This approach is so common that we may
well be tempted to reply, What could be
wrong with such an approach? The short
answer lies in the basic questions of
purpose: Why are we asking students to
read this particular novel—in other words,
what learnings will we seek from their
having read it? Do the students grasp why
and how the purpose should influence
their studying? What should students be
expected to understand and do upon
reading the book, related to our goals
beyond the book? Unless we begin our
design work with a clear insight into larger
purposes—whereby the book is properly
thought of as a means to an educational

end, not an end unto itself—it is unlikely
that all students will understand the book
(and their performance obligations).
Without being self-conscious of the specific
understandings about prejudice we seek,
and how reading and discussing the book
will help develop such insights, the goal is
far too vague: The approach is more “by
hope” than “by design.” Such an approach
ends up unwittingly being one that could
be described like this: Throw some content
and activities against the wall and hope
some of it sticks.
“Take hope out of schools.”
Jane E. Pollack
“This seems an incongruous
slogan to employ in the quest
to improve learning…”
“Take hope out of schools.” What is your
initial reaction to this statement?
This seems an incongruous slogan to
employ in the quest to improve
“I hope students can
identify the adverbs
and adjectives on
the test.”
“I hope this lab
works; I spent a lot
of time setting it up
for my students.”
“I hope that
tonight’s
concert goes
well.
“I hope they
learned it; I guess
next year’s
teacher will find
out.”
…but if you recall any number of
comments you may have heard in school…

How did we get to the point where we
hope for good results rather than plan for
them?
ERA EW
GNITTEG
LLA TI
.SDRAWKCAB
We are getting it all backwards.
So, what’s your point?
Answering the “why?” and “so what?”
questions that older students always ask
(or want to), and doing so in concrete
terms as the focus of curriculum planning,
is thus the essence of understanding by
design. What is difficult for many teachers
to see (but easier for students to feel!) is
that, without such explicit and transparent
priorities, many students find day-to-day
work confusing and frustrating.

A form of aimlessness goes by the name of
“coverage,” an approach in which students
march through a textbook, page by page
(or teachers through lecture notes) in a
valiant attempt to traverse all the factual
material within a prescribed time.
The problem is great exacerbated by a
world of high-stakes testing and grading.
Teachers are often satisfied by signs of
apparent understanding, such as when
students deliver the right words,
definitions, or formulas.
What concepts are difficult for students to
grasp in this unit?
How will I check for understanding or
misunderstanding?
UbD p.40
1) Identify desired results.
2) Determine acceptable
evidence.
3) Plan instruction and
learning experiences.
Stage 1: Identify desired results
What should students know, understand,
and be able to do? What content is worthy
of understanding? What enduring
understandings are desired? In Stage 1 we
consider our goals, examine established
content standards (national, state, district),
and review curriculum expectations.
Because typically we have more content
than we can reasonably address within the
available time, we must make choices. This
first stage in the design process calls for
clarity about priorities.

Key Design
Questions
Design
Considerations
Filters
(Design Criteria)
Final Design
Accomplishments
Stage 1:
• What is worthy and
requiring of
understanding?
• National standards
• State standards
• District standards
• Regional topic
opportunities
• Teacher expertise
• Enduring ideas
• Opportunities for
authentic, discipline-
based work
• Uncoverage
• Engaging
• Unit framed around
enduring
understandings and
essential learnings
Stage 2:
• What is evidence of
understanding?
• Six facets of
understanding
• Continuum of
assessment types
• Valid and reliable
• Sufficient
• Authentic work
• Feasible
• Student friendly
• Unit anchored in
credible and
educationally vital
evidence of the
desired
understandings
Stage 3:
• What learning
experiences and
teaching promote
understanding,
interest, and
excellence?
• Research-based
repertoire of
learning and
teaching strategies
• Essential and
enabling knowledge
and skill
• WHERE:
Where is it going
Hook the students
Explore and equip
Rethink and revise
Exhibit and evaluate
• Coherent learning
experiences and
teaching that will
evoke and develop
the desired under-
standings, promote
interest, and make
excellent perform-
ance more likely.
UbD p.18
What should students…

What knowledge is worth understanding? UbD p. 10-11

What IS worthy of understanding?
WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS
WORTH UNDERSTANDING?
UbD p. 23

“If you wanted to teach all of the
standards, you would have to
change schooling from K-12 to K-22.”
Robert Marzano
Worth Being
Familiar With
Important to
Know and Do
Enduring
Understanding
UbD p.10
Stage 1: Identify desired results
What should students know, understand,
and be able to do? What content is worthy
of understanding? What enduring
understandings are desired? In Stage 1 we
consider our goals, examine established
content standards (national, state, district),
and review curriculum expectations.
Because typically we have more content
than we can reasonably address within the
available time, we must make choices. This
first stage in the design process calls for
clarity about priorities.
Not everything we ask students to learn
must be thoroughly understood.

The purpose of a unit of study, the age of
the learners, and the time available all
determine how much or how little teachers
can expect students to understand.
• When is it worth the trouble to get
students to understand?
• When is it sufficient for students to have
only familiarity?
We cannot go into depth on everything.
Therefore, we must prioritize, by asking
the extent to which the standard requires
the students:
• to be “familiar with” the textbook
explanation…in which case a quiz on the
textbook would be sufficient
• to achieve a more complex and “enduring
understanding”…through analysis,
synthesis, and evaluation…culminating in
their own performance.
UbD p.22-24
I going to give you 1 minute to think of 2 of
your favorite units that you teach (or will
teach), and I want you to write down each
of the units on a separate post-it note.
At the end of 1 minute…I want you to get
up and move about the room and when I
say “pair,” I want you to pair with the
closest person to you and share one of
your favorite units with your partner.

Complete “How Do We Learn?” handout
activity.
Pair with your elbow partner.
You will need a “number” person and a
“word” person.
Lay out 14 sticky notes in 2 columns and 7
rows of sticky notes.
Read the directions.
How?
Why?
Students must be accountable for learning.
See “How Do We Learn” handout.

We’re going to repeat this process for your
other favorite unit.

This was a strategy that you can your in
your classroom called “Mix-Pair-Discuss.”
You have a handout on how to do this that
includes tips to consider when using this
strategy. See handout 16.

Students can hit
any achievement
target they can
see and that will
sit still for them.
Rick Stiggins
“
”
Do the marshmallow activity but with the
unit post-it notes. See p. 4 in How to Teach
so Students Remember.
evidence.
Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence
How will we know if students have
achieved the desired results? What will we
accept as evidence of student
understanding and proficiency? The
backward design orientation suggests that
we think about a unit or course in terms of
the collected assessment evidence needed
to document and validate that the desired
learning has been achieved, not simply as
content to be covered or as a series of
learning activities. This approach
encourages teachers and curriculum
planners to first “think like an assessor”
before designing specific units and lessons,
and thus to consider up front how they will
determine if students have attained the
desired understandings.

Key Design
Questions
Design
Considerations
Filters
(Design Criteria)
Final Design
Accomplishments
Stage 1:
requiring of
understanding?
• State standards
• Regional topic
opportunities
• Enduring ideas
based work
• Uncoverage
• Engaging
enduring
understandings and
essential learnings
Stage 2:
understanding?
• Six facets of
understanding
• Continuum of
assessment types
• Sufficient
• Authentic work
• Feasible
credible and
educationally vital
evidence of the
desired
understandings
Stage 3:
• What learning
experiences and
teaching promote
understanding,
interest, and
excellence?
• Research-based
repertoire of
learning and
teaching strategies
• Essential and
enabling knowledge
and skill
• WHERE:
Where is it going
Hook the students
Explore and equip
Rethink and revise
experiences and
teaching that will
evoke and develop
the desired under-
standings, promote
interest, and make
excellent perform-
ance more likely.
UbD p.18
BD calls for us to operationalize our goals
or standards in terms of assessment
evidence as we begin to plan a course or
unit.
BD begins with the question…
“What would we accept as
evidence that students have
attained the desired
understandings and proficiencies—
before proceeding to plan teaching
and learning experiences?
We’re used to jumping to lesson and
activity ideas – before clarifying our
performance goals for students.
By thinking through the assessments
upfront, we ensure greater alignment of
our goals and means, and that teaching is
focused on desired results

“Students should be presumed
innocent of understanding until
proven guilty by a
preponderance of evidence
that is more than
circumstantial.”
Jay McTighe
How will we know if students have
achieved the desired results and met the
standards?
What will we accept as evidence of student
understanding and proficiency?
UbD p.65
Think about a unit in terms of the collected
assessment evidence needed to document
and validate that the desired learning has
been achieved, so that the course is not
just content to be covered or a series of
learning activities.
UbD p. 12

Culminating projects in our units are often
“celebratory event” for students to
showcase their work.
From Great Performances: Creating
Classroom-Based Assessment Tasks by
Larry Lewin and Betty Jean Shoemaker

But, do we know who really learned what?Do we really know who learned what? Do we really know who learned what?
I taught Stripe how
to whistle.
When we were honest with ourselves, we
admitted that we operated under the
maxim: “I taught, therefore, they learned.”
From Great Performances: Creating
Classroom-Based Assessment Tasks by
Larry Lewin and Betty Jean Shoemaker
I don’t hear
him whistling.

I said I taught him,
I didn’t say he learned!
Think “Photo Album” vs “Snapshot”
Sound instruction and assessment requires
multiple sources of evidence collected over
time.

Consider a range of assessment methods
on a continuum of assessment methods
Quiz & Test Items: These are simple,
content-focused questions. They...
* Assess for factual information, concepts,
and discrete skill.
* Use selected-response or short-answer
formats.
* Are convergent--typically they have a
single, best answer.
* May be easily scored using an answer key
(or machine scoring).
* Are typically secure (not known in
advance).
Academic Prompts: These are open-ended
questions or problems that require the
student to think critically, not just recall
knowledge, and then to prepare a
response, product, or performance. They...
* Require constructed responses under
school or exam conditions.
* Are open. There is not a single, best
answer or a best strategy for answering or
solving them.
* Often are ill-structured, requiring the
development of a strategy.
* Involve analysis, synthesis, or evaluation.
* Typically require an explanation or
defense of the answer given or method
used.
* Require judgment-based scoring based
on criteria and performance standards.
* May or may not be secure.
Performance Tasks & Projects: As complex
challenges that mirror the issues and
problems faced by adults, they are
authentic. Ranging in length from short-
term tasks to long-term, multi-staged
projects, they require a production or
performance. They differ from prompts
because they...
* Feature a setting that is real or
simulated: one that involves the kind of
constraints, background noise, incentives,
and opportunities an adult would find in a

similar situation.
* Typically require the student to address
an identified audience.
* Are based on a specific purpose that
relates to the audience.
* Allow the student greater opportunity to
personalize the task.
* Are not secure. Task, criteria, and
standards are known in advance and guide
the student's work.
evidence.
Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and
instruction
With clearly identified results and
appropriate evidence of understanding in
mind, it is now the time to fully think
through the most appropriate instructional
activities. Several key questions must be
considered at this stage of backward
design: What enabling knowledge (facts,
concepts, principles) and skills (processes,
procedures, strategies) will students need
in order to perform effectively and achieve
desired results? What activities will equip
students with the needed knowledge and
skills? What will need to be taught and
coached, and how should it best be taught,
in light of performance goals? What
materials and resources are best suited to
accomplish these goals?
Note that the specifics of instructional
planning—choices about teaching
methods, sequence of lessons, and
resource materials—can be successfully
completed only after we identify desired
results and assessments and consider what
they imply. Teaching is a means to an end.
Having a clear goal helps to focus our
planning and guide purposeful action
toward the intended results.

Key Design
Questions
Design
Considerations
Filters
(Design Criteria)
Final Design
Accomplishments
Stage 1:
requiring of
understanding?
• State standards
• Regional topic
opportunities
• Enduring ideas
based work
• Uncoverage
• Engaging
enduring
understandings and
essential learnings
Stage 2:
understanding?
• Six facets of
understanding
• Continuum of
assessment types
• Sufficient
• Authentic work
• Feasible
credible and
educationally vital
evidence of the
desired
understandings
Stage 3:
• What learning
experiences and
teaching promote
understanding,
interest, and
excellence?
• Research-based
repertoire of
learning and
teaching strategies
• Essential and
enabling knowledge
and skill
• WHERE:
Where is it going
Hook the students
Explore and equip
Rethink and revise
experiences and
teaching that will
evoke and develop
the desired under-
standings, promote
interest, and make
excellent perform-
ance more likely.
UbD p.18
Everybody seems to have a “coach” story.
What is your coach story?
Or we might think of it as planning for
coaching: What must learners master if
they are to effectively perform? What will
count as evidence on the field, not merely
in drills, that they really get it and are
ready to perform with understanding,
knowledge, and skill on their own? How
will the learning be designed so that
learners' capacities are developed through
use and feedback?
What do 7th
grade coaches do when a
group of boys/girls first begin practice?
• They gauge/preassess the boys’/girls’
skills.
When a basketball coach has his/her
players dribble with his/her dominant
hand, what is he/she doing while the
players are dribbling?
• Observing the players’ skill level.
What is a basketball coach doing when
he/she has his/her players dribble with
their non-dominant hand?
• Challenging students on a new skill.
What does the coach after introducing a
variety of skills?
• Tell story of the major league coach who
was invited to teach a group of young
children how to hit. (The first thing he did

was to watch each child hit a bucket of
balls before offering one tip.)
What do coaches do in practice prior to the
first game?
• Use skills in a practice game setting. You
don’t see coaches doing weeks of direct
teach prior to game one.
What do coaches do during the game?
During halftime?
• Observe/make adjustments
Complete “How Do We Learn?” handout
activity.
Pair with your elbow partner.
You will need a “number” person and a
“word” person.
Lay out 14 sticky notes in 2 columns and 7
rows of sticky notes.
Read the directions.
How?
Why?
Students must be accountable for learning.
See “How Do We Learn” handout.
10%...

10%...what we READ
20%...what we HEAR
30%...what we SEE
50%...what we SEE and HEAR
70%...what we DISCUSS
80%...what we EXPERIENCE
90%...what we TEACH
“A test is the
weakest form of
assessment.”
Mike Schmoker
Check
The Batsmen were merciless
against the Bowlers. The Bowlers
placed their men in slips and
covers. But to no avail. The
Batsmen hit one four after
another along with an occasional
six. Not once did their balls hit
their stumps or get caught.
• Who were merciless against the
Bowlers?
• Where did the Bowlers place their
men?
• Was this strategy successful?
• Who hit an occasional six?
• How many times did the Batsmen’s
balls hit a stump?
You all got 100%. Congratulations! What
did you learn?
Now, you are seeing content-area reading
from a kids-eye view: how students
can read every word on a page without
understanding; how they can
sometimes pass tests on concepts they
don’t really grasp; how they can go

through a whole book or unit, and end
up with no long-term memory of what
they studied at all.
We’ve got to find ways to make content
meaningful to our students. This
passage is about cricket.

A child’s attention span is the
equivalent of his age
(give or take a few minutes).
What do students pay attention to? What do students today pay attention to?
•Possible topics include: music, movies,
phones, internet
Working in groups of 4, each person take 1
sheet of paper. Write 1 of the 4 topics
listed (i.e. music on 1 sheet, movies on
another, etc.). List as many ways students
use that medium. When I say “pass,” pass
the paper to the person to your right.
Without duplicating an answer, continue to
list ways students use that medium.
Ready, “pass.”
Poll: It is a teacher's job to engage stude...
Press F5 or use the tool bar to enter
presentation mode in order to see the poll.
In an emergency during your presentation,
if the poll isn't showing, navigate to this
link in your web browser:
http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple
_choice_polls/MTY1OTY1NTMxOA
If you like, you can use this slide as a
template for your own voting slides. You
might use a slide like this if you feel your
audience would benefit from the picture

showing a text message on a phone.
Poll: It is a teacher's job to entertain st...
Press F5 or use the tool bar to enter
presentation mode in order to see the poll.
In an emergency during your presentation,
if the poll isn't showing, navigate to this
link in your web browser:
http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple
_choice_polls/ODcxNjc0ODM4
If you like, you can use this slide as a
template for your own voting slides. You
might use a slide like this if you feel your
audience would benefit from the picture
showing a text message on a phone.

INSERT CHARLIE BROWN’S TEACHER VOICE
This is known as the “sage on the stage.”
“Teaching is not young people watching
old people work.”
How many people can participate at one
time?

10-minute rule
Given the tendency of an audience to
check out 20% of the way into a
presentation, I knew I initially had only
about 600 seconds to earn the right to be
heard—or the next hour would be useless.
I needed something after the 601st
second
to “buy” another 10 minutes.
After 9 minutes and 59 seconds, the
audience’s attention is getting ready to
plummet to near zero. They need
something so compelling that they blast
through the 10-minute barrier and move
on to new ground—something that
triggers an orienting response toward the
speaker and captures executive functions,
allowing efficient learning. BR91
Hooks have to be relevant. If hooks are
irrelevant, the presentation seems
disjointed or listeners mistrust the
speaker’s motives (as if trying to entertain
at the expense of providing
information)…if the hook is relevant, the
group is moved from feeling entertained to
feeling engaged. BR91
Must trigger an emotion: fear, laughter,
happiness, nostalgia, increduility
(amazement, doubt, skepticism, unbelief,
wonder, or novel stimuli—the unusual,
unpredictable, or distinctive—are powerful
ways to harness attention) BR76)) BR91

Vision
We do not see with our eyes. We see with
our brains. BR223
The amygdala is the major player in
emotions and their memories. Because the
amygdala modulates both explicit and
implicit memory…we remember poignant
events better than boring or neutral ones.
When the amygdala detects emotion, it
essentially boost activity in the areas of the
brain that forms memories, and that’s how
it makes a stronger memory a more vivid
memory.
What are emotions?
Most researchers refer to the six universal
emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger,
surprise, and disgust.

Everyday experience and laboratory
studies reveal that emotionally charged
incidents are better remembered than
non-emotional events. The emotional
boost begins at the moment that a
memory is born, when attention and
elaboration strongly influence whether an
experience will be subsequently
remembered or forgotten.
How to Teach So Students Remember p. 23
Complete 4 Corners activity. Go to the
corner of the photograph that represents a
time when you can specifically recall where
you were the moment that it happened.
Discuss in your group.
Music
Songs capture emotion.
First date.
5 songs that define your life…your unit.

What catches our eye?
The brain continuously scans the sensory
horizon, with events constantly assessed
for their potential interest or importance.
BR76
Brain rules
Regardless of who you are, the brain pays a
great deal of attention to these questions:
Can I eat it? Will it eat me?
Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me?
Have I seen it before? BR81
There’s no bigger rule in biology than
evolution through natural selection:
Whoever gets the food survives; whoever
survives gets to have sex; and whoever has
sex gets to pass his traits on to the next
generation. BR34

Unfortunately, most people never make
the jump from verbal expression—which is
what we were all taught in school—to
effective visual expression, which is neither
easy nor natural. S:Oxviii
Nonlinguistic Representation Ironically, the one thing that combines
creative thinking, analytics, data
assimilation, and the inherent ability to
express oneself visually. S:O2
Nonlinguistic Representations is one of
Robert Marzano’s nine essential high Level
instructional strategies found within
Classroom Instruction That Works & The
Handbook for Classroom Instruction that
Works. According to research, knowledge
is stored in two forms: linguistic and visual.
The more students use both forms in the
classroom, the more opportunity they have
to achieve. Recently, use of nonlinguistic
representation has proven to not only
stimulate but also increase brain activity.
• Incorporate words and images using
symbols to represent relationships.
• Use physical models and physical
movement to represent information.
• Creating graphic representations.
• Generating mental pictures.
• Drawing pictures and pictographs.
• Engaging in kinesthetic activity.

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/
Six-Word Memoirs: The Legend
Legend has it that Hemingway was once
challenged to write a story in only six
words. His response? “For sale: baby
shoes, never worn.” Starting in 2006,
SMITH Magazine re-ignited the recountre
by asking our readers for their own six-
word memoirs. They sent in short life
stories in droves, from the bittersweet
(“Cursed with cancer, blessed with
friends”) and poignant (“I still make coffee
for two”) to the inspirational (“Business
school? Bah! Pop music? Hurrah”) and
hilarious (“I like big butts, can’t lie”).
(i.e. Same Kind of Different as Me: Wealth,

poverty; two worlds; one friendship.)

Conclusion
You can get with this or you can get with
that.

Stickiness
What makes messages stick? Sticky ideas
have 6 key principles in common: simplicity
(if everything is important, nothing is
important), unexpectedness, concreteness,
credibility, emotions, and stories. PZ76
(See also Made to Stick (MtS) by Chip and
Dan Heath)

Understanding Understanding by Design

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