Understanding by Design Template

As  teachers we have the responsibility of creating and developing an environment where students feel motivated to learn and show the best of them. The classroom is the place where learners spend most of their entire time. A significant learning environment increases students’ attention and focus, encourages higher levels of student performance and motivates students to practice higher-level critical thinking skills.  Without a doubt it is necessary to create significant learning experiences. 

 

Creating a significant learning environment is a combination of elements but first of all should be learner-centered with focus on collaboration, integration, creativity, imagination, COVA and more. The significant learning environment requires a plan to be actioned. I was using Fink’s 3 column table to align outcomes, activities and assessments related to a specific unit in the course as part of my innovation plan. Basically, Fink’s method develops a plan to focus on outcomes-base instructions under six certain goals as foundational, application,human dimension, caring, and learning how to learn (Fink n.d).  

 

As a result of my 3 column table, I learned the importance of the learning outcome and now I want to delve deeper into those details that are going to help me to create a specific plan referred to as an Understanding by Design Template, or UbD Template (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Completing the UbD Template took the outcomes from the 3 column table a step farther by showing exactly how those goals would be reached through 3 stages - desired results, assessment evidence, and learning plan. The UbD Template lets us know the importance of setting goals for the long term because there are differences between knowing and understanding.

 

According to Wiggins & McTighe (2005, p.58), "the greatest defect in teacher lesson plans...is that the key intellectual priorities - deep understandings of transferable big ideas, and competence at core performance tasks - are falling through the cracks of lessons, units, and courses devoted to developing thousands of discrete elements of knowledge and skill, unprioritized and unconnected" (p. 58).

The UbD Template narrows in on specific learning goals and takes it deeper. This helps to avoid activity-focused and coverage-focused teaching, which would encourage learners to merely memorize content.