Teaching Journal: Understanding by Design Framework

wiggins_and_mctighe_understanding_by_design.pdf
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Authors and summary: This article is written by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins. It provides a framework for a three stage framework of teaching. Summarized below:

• focus on teaching for understanding
• design curriculum backward from those ends
• indicators of understanding are the capacity to explain, interpret, apply, shift perspective, empathize and self-assess
• teachers are coaches
• cognitive psychology and student achievement studies drive the framework
• domain independence is the goal
• stage 2 assessment should be aligned with stage 1 goals
• stage 3 lesson planning should be aligned with stage 1 goals of Transfer, Meaning making and Acquisiton

Thoughts: Seems like a straight forward way of teaching. I don't typically like doing anything without the goal in mind and can't really imagine doing it any other way. The assessment in stage 2 seems to be the difficult part of the framework. I think some understandings can be very difficult assess. However, I do like the teachers as coaches metaphor.

Learning priorities are established by long-term performance goals—what it is we want students, in the end, to be able to do with what they have learned. The bottom-line goal of education is transfer.The point of school is not to simply excel in each class, but to be able to use one’s learning in other settings.