Understanding by Design

Understanding By Design (UbD) is a curriculum design approach, created by teacher-educators Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, that asks us to consider and clarify the overarching goals for a unit of study before planning lesson activities. In this model, the goals established in the initial stages of unit planning go beyond discrete skills or facts to be learned. Instead, teachers focus their learning goals around what conceptual understandings they consider essential to the discipline or topic under review in a given unit. These conceptual understandings should be transferable to new situations and teachers should explicitly teach students the skills and knowledge needed in order to learn these desired understandings. Assessments and learning experiences are designed and resources selected in service of attaining the desired learning outcomes.

As we engage in planning professional development and supporting teachers in planning curricula, we have found the Understanding by Design (UbD) model useful to keep us focused on standards-based, critical, and rigorous outcomes, as we plan lessons that emphasize student creativity, engagement, critical thinking, and joy. The UbD design approach requires teachers to attend to three stages of instructional concerns. These stages are not completed in a linear fashion—but they do need to align among each other. That is to say that outcomes, assessments, and learning experiences should be linked and mutually supported.

The three stages in this "results oriented" design process are:

• Stage 1: Identify desired results. In this stage, unit designers study the standards, the discipline and the content to answer the question, What do I want to students to know, understand and be able to do as a result of this unit? Designers need to make hard choices about what content they will foreground in the unit, what enduring understandings they will make most prominent, and what skills for producing and consuming knowledge and understandings will be necessary to attain these goals.
• Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence. Continuing in the backwards design mode, designers consider what evidence will be acceptable as proof that students have achieved the desired results. A variety of assessment evidence will be needed in order to gain a full picture of what students are learning. The major assessment task should be authentic, provide students with the opportunity to synthesize their new understandings, and should include clear criteria for evaluation.
• Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction. At this point, designers need to select the best route to guide students successfully towards the desired results. What experiences will equip students with the knowledge and skills they need for success in this unit? What activities and resources and what methods of instruction are bestsuited the goals articulated above? You will want to begin with a strong hook: an engaging activity to pique student interest and a clear statement to students of the intended learning outcomes.

As you develop the plan through the three stages, you will probably need to winnow down some at each stage. The end result should be concise and focused. The idea is to teach toward deep understanding rather than a shallow overview.

Resources

Attached you will find two templates that makes this three stage process far more visual and easier to understand and enact.

• 1. UbD Template with guiding questions
• 2. UbD Blank Template

For more detailed information on this model, see: Wiggins, Grant & McTighe, Jay (2005). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.