UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN

Grant Wiggins and Jay Mc Tighe

Chapter 1

Backward Design

"The book is properly thought of as a means to an Educational end, not an end itself"

As English teachers, how often have we designed our units around a particular text that we are teaching? This fact is evidenced by the language of the conversations we establish with our colleagues: "I'm in the middle of my Space unit right now, and I'm so delayed; what are you doing?" "I just started my unit on The Physical Description". Backward design shifts us, teachers, into thinking about theme-driven units as opposed to text-driven units, which is a crucial issue to think about. This also opens up a unit considerably so we can take a multi-genre approach and use a variety of texts to gain multiple perspectives on the questions associated with the theme. However, it is not that easy as it appears, because issues like these do not depend on us, on the contrary, they depend on "authorities' decisions" which unfortunately are not the best ones because "buisness are business". Nevertheless, this necessitates that we move away from a genre approach to teaching English toward a curriculum that focuses on the "big ideas and questions" that wil engage students and will help them to see the relevance of the study of EFL.

The backward design model centers on the idea that the design process should begin with identifying the desired results and then "work backwards" to develop instruction rather than the traditional approach which is to define what topics need to be covered. the framework identifies three main stages:

1. Identify desired outcomes and results.
2. Determine what constitutes acceptable evidence of competency in the outcomes and results.
3. Plan instructional strategies and learning experiences that bring students to these competency levels.

As teachers we understand that feedback and assessment does not always equal criticism when we do it, but when we receive it, we tend to find ourselves right back in the student's chair again.

Criteria and Validity

UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN
Grant Wiggins and Jay Mc Tighe
Chapter 8
Criteria and Validity



“The criteria would specify the conditions that any performance must meet to be successful; they define, operationally, the task requirements”. (173)

If we try to articulate every piece of reading we have already read from this book, I can say that every word is closely linked and articulated in order to make my job as a teacher better. Now, my horizon is broader and clearer, full of understanding light. We must be completely clear about WHAT we are assessing and HOW we are assessing. And there lies a huge problem because unfortunately sometimes we mix learning goals with assessment methods and as a result, the criterion is mixed as well. I have to consider assessment as a means of getting valuable information to be used for improving the teaching and learning, and the criteria to be used when assessing must be as clear as possible in order to assess what is supposed to be assessed.

“We have to be sure that the performances we demand are appropriate to the particular understandings sought. Could a student perform well on the test without understanding? Could a student with understanding nonetheless forget or jumble together key facts? Yes and yes — it happens all the time. We want to avoid doubtful inferences when assessing any student work, but especially so when assessing for understanding”. (183)

In determining whether an assessment is truly valid evidence of a student’s understanding, the authors argue that we teachers should ask ourselves how likely it is that “a student could do well on this performance task, but really not demonstrate the understandings [we] are after” or whether “a student could perform poorly on this task, but still have significant understanding of the ideas and show them in other ways” (184). Therefore, when we conceive an instrument to measure understanding and a criterion to assess such instrument, we must assure that such work has been thought in depth, has been carried out thinking on the actual goals, and has considered the purposes set when planning the whole cycle (teaching/learning – assessing – interpretation of the results – teaching/learning).

“We are not born effective teachers, but we need to be effective from the start”

Thinking like an Assessor

UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN
Grant Wiggins and Jay Mc Tighe
Chapter 7
Thinking like an assessor


“How do I know they really know?”

Well, another important task to carry out: To assess. As all of us know what assessment is, I’d like to start briefly defining this crucial and complex term. According to the author, assessment is “the act of determining the extent to which the desired results are on the way to being achieved and to what extent they have been achieved” (p.6). In other words, we need clear evidence of understanding and we are supposed to gather it somehow. We as teachers sometimes fear assessment and evaluation because we don’t understand it and, therefore, cannot gain control over it. Somehow we have to decide what students must know and how they are to demonstrate knowledge and understanding. And all this process leads us to wonder a couple of questions: How well are students learning? How effectively are teachers teaching? And more importantly, we as teachers must be clear about the following questions: To what extent do the assessments provide valid, reliable and sufficient measures of the desired results? What will students do to show me they understand? What is the most appropriate assessment(s) method? So as we can see, many questions emerge from this very “simple” word that must be crystal clear for us as teachers, and a very general definition of the purpose of assessment has to do with the documents we gather regarding the students’ movement from knowledge and skills to critical reasoning and communication and that it informs instruction and lesson design. Regarding this last word DESING, we teachers tend to be “activity designers” rather than “assessors”, which is crucial to be clear about. And here is a checklist to notice this difference.

Backwards design (assessor) vs. traditional design (activity designer)
Assessor’s design:
Ø Requires sufficient and revealing evidence of understanding
Ø Distinguishes between those who really understand and those who don’t.
Ø Has distinguishing work criteria
Ø Checks for predetermined misunderstandings
Activity designer’s design:
Ø Looks for interesting and engaging activities on topic.
Ø Identifies available resources and materials.
Ø Thinks about what students will be doing in and out of class and what assignments will be given
Ø Wonders if the activities worked – why or why not


We need to know the learner’s thought process along with their answers

Gaining Clarity on our Goals

UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN
Grant Wiggins and Jay Mc Tighe
Chapter 3
Gaining Clarity on Our Goals


“Teachers = Sinners?”

I would like to start saying that “I believe in God” and that I regret from my sins that probably I have done before since I have realized from a new one: “the aimless content of my lessons”, i.e., there is no guiding intellectual purpose or clear priorities which frame the learning experience. Unfortunately, this is a big and common problem because we as teachers sometimes do not have enough time to prepare everything properly as we have to deal with “coverage” of all the contents meant to be developed through a school period previously established; therefore, we sometimes tend to use isolated activities with no clear aim on its contents or there is no intellectual purpose on it. For example, there is no intellectual purpose when we play games without planning them adequately, let’s say, “The Hangman”, the most useless or aimless one, as somebody mentioned once. However, that’s not an excuse to avoid correct planning for my lessons as a teacher. I have to ask questions and find the answers for them, such as “What is the point? What is the important big idea here? Why should the students learn this? When doing so, I can say that there is a clear purpose of my teaching activities or lessons. Therefore, it is relevant to consider that the remedy for this problem is to consider explicit big ideas as a guide for the teaching process and a concrete plan for ensuring the learning process. And obviously the most relevant aspect is to consider and perform the “Backward design”, which calls for us as teachers to make our goals or standards specific and concrete, in terms of assessment evidence, as we teachers begin to plan a unit or course.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN
Grant Wiggins and Jay Mc Tighe

Chapter 5
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:
DOORWAYS TO UNDERSTANDING

“…through provocative questions, students deepen their understanding”

We teachers are always asking questions and looking for “the correct answer”. We always use factual questions where our students evince that they really know that important answer. Nevertheless, it is really important to consider that we are not only looking for the evidence of that “knowing”, but also we are looking for evidence of real “thinking”. Probably some questions are essential in my role as a teacher, but it must be clear that we teacher also have to provide essential questions to anyone as a “thinking person”. Therefore, through these essential questions we may help our students to stimulate their thinking. Asking essential questions as a way of organizing content also serves to strengthen students' sense of their own authority over the content and to deepen their real understanding on a specific content and to motivate and encourage students’ inquiry. And if we consider Bloom’s taxonomy, these essential questions reside at the top as the students not only have to understand, but also have to analyze, evaluate and create.

“What makes a question essential?”
But how we teachers can realize what makes essential one question; what makes the difference between one question to another. Well, there are some important clues we should consider when looking for these essential questions and when answering them. First of all, these questions should offer “transferability” across disciplines; they should cause genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content; they should provoke deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding; they must require students to consider options, concrete and/or real evidence; they must stimulate “rethinking”; they must spark connections between previous learning and personal experiences. Thus, the essential questions “frame the goals”.

“Overarching questions”
To round off, I can conclude that it is “essential” to use not only factual or “topical” questions which focus mainly on the content of a topic, but also overarching questions, which are framed around “truly big ideas”. These overarching and essential questions focus on learning content for understanding; therefore we teachers may clearly develop critical thinking on our students.

Understanding Understanding

UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN
Grant Wiggins and Jay Mc Tighe
Chapter 2
Understanding Understanding

“Doing something correctly is not, by itself, evidence of understanding”

I would like to start this comment on the text “Understanding by design” referring to the former quotation. We teachers aim for understanding. We are always looking for the students’ understanding and ironically maybe we do not have this concept completely clear. The meaning of understanding is not only “a mental act”, actually, according to the author’s definition, understanding is to make connections and tie our knowledge to something that makes sense of things. It is not only doing in the right way, but also is explaining why it is done or it is not done in a particular way. Therefore, we have to be careful when we see our students “acting in the right way”, probably they do not really understand and it is our job to make sure about this understanding and acting. Understanding is thus not mere knowledge of facts, but knowledge of why and how, laid out in evidence and reasoning.

“Developing the ability to transfer one’s learning is key to a good education”

I think we teachers expect our students to be able to transfer information more easily when we have not really given them the tools to do so. We teachers have to help our students to be able to apply all the knowledge we are providing them and put it into realistic practice. Our students must be able to show evidence of what they know; therefore they are able to wisely and effectively use what they know.

“My goodness, didn’t they teach you that in grade X?”

I think we have thought and maybe said this sentence more than once in our teaching experience. And if our students have not shown what they should have understood, we do have to re teach. Understanding is also a matter of degree, furthered by questions arisen from reflection and discussion.

“What understanding really means for teachers has to do with the ability to think and act flexibly with what someone knows”

the way it works....