Designing A Curriculum Using The Understanding By Design Framework

In all three of these artifacts, I have developed relevant, integrative, challenging, and exploratory units of study. The “Preserving the Past” unit incorporates all four core subjects as well as a service learning opportunity. My interdisciplinary unit on geography connects Language Arts with Social Studies with visual art mixed in, and the Greek mythology ELA unit was taught in conjunction with a Social Studies class (1). The Civil War unit and NC geography unit I have created incorporate Common Core standards as well as NC Essential standards. Lesson plans and assessments in all of these units were created using backwards design in which I started by looking at the standards and objectives students would be expected to reach and based my assessment based on those objectives (2,10).

For this cornerstone, students will be measured by three rubrics. The first rubric is for the reading task (interpretive), the second for the situation cards (interpersonal), and the third for the advice column (presentational). The rubric does contain point values, however, it is often more beneficial for students to not see the associated points, but rather their proficiency level. At this level, students should be at the intermediate-mid

2) Design training: the assessor must plan and design an assessment programme which meets the needs of the learner and the requirements of the course.

This assignment is another opportunity to apply the principles of universal design for learning (UDL) in the design of instruction and assessment. In this assignment, a lesson plan is developed, incorporating UDL and effectively leveraging educational technologies in the classroom.

Assessing the children understanding is considered to be a good indicator of their learning and development process (Reys et al., 2012). Stiggins (2002) discussed the difference between the children’s assessment for learning and assessment of learning. Teachers need to be familiar with both. Assessment for learning (or as we call it the formative assessment) helps the students to learn more about different concepts and increase the opportunity to develop various skills. On the other side, assessment of learning (summative assessment) is to give the teacher an evidence of students’ achievements for purposes of accountability and reporting. For example, assessment for learning can include the teacher’s observations, in-class assignments,

I will be responsible for expanding my students’ zone of proximal development. I hope to take my students from the level of minimal prior knowledge with expansive help to the level of being able to work independently with a high level of proximal development. By building the students zone of proximal development, I will be able to ensure that the students will be successful not only in my class but future classes. The unit plan I have developed is based on North Carolina’s Common Core and Essential standards, and will ensure that the students are learning and meeting the necessary goals required of them in the fourth grade. Students in the fourth grade have a foundation for knowledge, however, they are constantly becoming more inquisitive and wanting to learn more details. This inquisitiveness provides the opportunity to cover material they already know and then expand upon it. The topic of the Lost Colony of Roanoke will allow the students to make connections to how the Americas began and make connections to the real world, as well as

I want improve upon my understanding and ability to create purposeful, contextually-relevant lesson and unit plans which are Backwards Designed, well scaffolded, and have meaningful formative and summative assessments (Goal 5).

Indicator 1b: Teachers treat students equitably and with dignity. They recognize the individual differences, and they account for these differences in practice.

Although not a new idea, the deliberate use of backward design for planning curriculum units and courses results in more clearly defined goals, more appropriate assessments, more tightly aligned lessons, and more purposeful teaching.

Efficient educators know and understand the importance of selecting, planning, and implementing effective assessment tools and strategies that measure student’s levels of understanding. Different types of assessments are used for a broad range of purposes that include formative, placement, diagnostic, and summative assessments. However, the main purpose is to “foster learning in all its forms” (Lefrancois, 2013, Ch. 6.1). Teachers use pre, formative, and summative assessments to determine what students know before, during, and after instruction. Each measurement is used to plan, modify, and adjust instruction to meet the needs of all learners. Although each form of assessment plays a critical role in ensuring all students succeed, educators

The Anson High School observation instrument is a hybrid of Quantitative and Qualitative data. This school-wide observation instrument was created for the purpose of collecting a school-wide instructional needs assessment. Along with this data, open-ended responses are also recorded for the purpose of teacher growth.

Throughout the day, the elementary school principal provided feedback from the informal observations to the teachers. I was very impressed with her approach. For these informal observations, she uses the “three P’s”. First is purpose, she stated that the purpose of her visit. The second P is praise. Praise was given for positive student interactions and conversations between themselves. The final P stands for probe. A question is then asked to get the teacher to reflect and self-diagnose any areas of needed improvement. The principal asked, “How do you assess student understanding during the lesson”. The teacher then stated, “I am not sure how to check for understanding during the lesson, I usually check after

Domain III: Instruction Indicator 8: actively engages students in the learning process. Teachers use different instructional strategies based on appropriate skill level. Indicator 10: Brings multiple perspectives to the delivery of content. Teachers acknowledges diversity and differentiate instruction. The teacher demonstrated deep knowledge of content by connecting ideas from across the curriculum to everyday life. The demonstration of deep knowledge of content during instruction was also measured on how the teacher engaged the students, based on the activity the students were doing. The transformation of content knowledge was a challenge for the teacher. As time progressed, the teacher was able to transform the content. The transformation, then became adaptable to all the students. Thought maddening questions were observed in measuring questioning techniques in

McKenna, Flower, and Ciullo (2014) suggest that observations, self-assessments and permanent products can be used to improve and measure the fidelity of interventions. During observations an individual familiar with the curriculum or intervention will determine the degree to which teachers are adhering to core procedures and elements using task analysis. Likewise self-assessments also use checklists to track intervention events, and during reflection teachers identify areas of the intervention they found difficult and seek out additional support. Lastly, permanent products such as student self-monitoring sheets, student point sheets, charts, and tokens can be used to inform a teacher of the degree to which students learned the material and

After examining the Understanding by Design framework by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, I have learned how to develop a unit by working backwards. The development of a unit is multi-layered in its focus on curriculum, instruction, and assessment. In planning I need to first assess what the big ideas are that I want my students to learn and why they are so important. In our study of Mesopotamia, we look at how our world began with the first civilization and the achievements that led to advances throughout history. The big ideas framed as understandings that I want my students to know are that the locations of civilizations and city-states in relation to specific landforms affects development and technology achievements can benefit society in a variety of areas. Then I look at what essential questions are raised and what I want students to know and be able to do. The framework looks to deepen student understanding and transfer that understanding of knowledge and skill into a performance task and other evidence of formative and summative assessments.