Wiggins+Chapter+6

Hi!

I agree that the Misconception Alert is interesting. I think that is something many people, including teachers, sometimes get themselves into. We sometimes use words so often that they lose their meaning. So, if we use "understand" in our lesson plans even when we don't really mean it, it will eventually lose its meaning and we may begin to diminish the importance of it. The tips on identifying and framing understandings was also very interesting. It is somewhat ironic that we often demand specificity and articulation with our students, yet we don't always articulate ourselves. The example on page 135 says that instead of "I want students to understand the causes of the Civil War", we should say "I want students to understand that there were several significant and interrelated causes of the Civil War-the morality of slavery...". I also like the idea of being aware of predictable misunderstandings. Anytime we can clear up something that we know, whether from past experience or advice from other teachers, will be likely to have misunderstandings, we should take the time to clear it up right away instead of waiting until students have practiced something with their misconception still in place. (Chase B.) One of the things I'd forgotten from undergrad was the addition of the "that" which follows the "students will understand..." After reading the emphasis and explanation on page 135 it really makes sense to include "that" because it forces the complete sentence of desired understanding. However, as noted with the example, the revision of expressed thought and goals is important to the teacher's understanding of the topic as well. I do think that this is something I will have to practice to truly grasp because I would have probably stopped in the example with "...causes of the Civil War" instead of going on to express those specific causes I wanted to illuminate. (Emily)

I really like the Misconception Alert on pg. 133

A common phrase used in content standards or lesson framing is that "students will understand how to...." do something. The phrasing presents a potential source of confusion in UbD......the implication here is that much of what we ask students to do is based on skills but not deep conceptual understanding... When you look at your own //Understandings//...are the truly deep concept based... how can we get to that in our divergent disciplines.. what does Wiggins suggest are some answers.. what have you tried... ???

I feel that I really got a lot out of this chapter on enduring understandings. One thing that I took away from Otterbein’s undergrad was that there is this misconception when writing enduring understandings. You can’t just say that “students will understand” something, but rather need to tell how they’ll show understanding of something. So, rather than using understand, use other verbs, or elaborate on that understanding. Students will understand.... by creating.... etc. This chapter really had me thinking about how the many different teachers are having their students show their understanding. Most of it is by taking tests. Most tests are multiple choice with 0-2 short answer problems. Then when reading Nicole's reminder from undergrad I realized how many of the teachers I sub for would have to say that Students understand by completing a multiple choice test. This is the easy way out and is not truly showing their understanding. This then leads into the undersatning verses factual knowledge. So many teacher are checking to see if students can memorize the factual knowlege and not taking the time to see to come up with ways to see if the student acutally understands. I also have seen that many teachers simply use the test provided with the textbooks, which can be acceptable, but only if you cover in your teaching ONLY the things which are th  e textbook. Most teacher I know use the text as a guide and go beyond with thier lessons, but then don't add that assessment to their testing. I do think that the kg/first grades do have an advantage in the "showing understanding" category because so much assessment of understanding is based on projects or activities rather than written assessments. However, this can also be a hindrance for some students because they may be able to 'do" the activities but not be able to verbalize how or why (which is where the lesson and discussion part takes over). I think that this chapter really drove home to me the feeling that I'm not entirely grasping the concept because I'm not able to create a plan that will be implemented currently. There are parts of the theory that are obvious (once I've read them) and others that I think "How do I tell the difference (between a fact and an understanding p. 136/138)?" when it is all in your perspective. Being able to apply the concepts would really help me to work through such issues.

Other things that stood out to me in this reading: ~page 132: An understanding is not a straightforward given, but a conclusion inferred using givens. The understanding should be an inference made through learning. ~page 129: Meaning is between the lines, not in the lines. Students should use comprehension strategies like summarizing, questioning, predicting, etc, to draw their understandings and create meaning for themselves. ~page 130: “Generalizations are the enduring understandings, the “big ideas” the answer to the “so what?” of study. ~page 131: Topical vs overarching understandings. I think that often times people forget to look at the big picture when planning. You should have broad understandings that span across your entire unit or year, and more specific understandings within your lessons. By planning out the broad understandings through the unit or year, you will allow the students to see the connections and allow their previous knowledge to transfer into the other units or lessons. Going along with this, I think it’s important to remember that they point out that these understanding should be enduring. As stated on p. 136, they should endure over time and across cultures as important and useful, or they should endure in the mind of the student to make sense of content and transfer key ideas. These are important pieces to remember as we set our understandings in our lessons. (Nicole)

I agree with this idea that Wiggins and McTighe are trying to convey (and what you just said Nicole) about broad understandings that span across the entire unit or year. However, I tried to bring this idea up the other day with my co-teachers and kind of got shot down. We have been reading books by David Shannon and several of the students were interested in making/writing their own books. We were discussing doing an author study or looking at books as a whole. When I suggested the overarching question: "What is a book?", one of the co-teachers said she wasn't sure the students were ready for this expansive of a study yet or a study at all. Her concern comes from the fact that many of our students are new to our class this year (sometimes children remain in our room for multiple years) and they are young more are three years old rather than five to six years of age and over half speak English as a second language, and they speak little to no English at this moment. I totally get where she is coming from and I know that we need to focus on basic skills before the students can get to the more broad understandings, but I don't think exposing them to some of these higher thinking ideas will hurt them either. I say this for two reasons because not all of my students are ESL (the majority of my special needs students are not ESL and can handle and need such a type of curriculum because their disabilites are not so much cognitive delays) and I am quickly learning that some of the ESL students understand quite a bit of English they just can't speak it yet. My plan really has been to continue with this type of curriculum but not to publicize it to the other teachers until they see what I can and are ready to buy in. I think the understandings of what a book is can go across cultural boundaries. I hope that doesn't sound shady but when you have four teachers in a room with varying levels of education and backgrounds you must compromise and make everyone feel comfortable and like their voice is being heard. I think it is kind of like the book states about understanding. Understandings are not accepted by faith they must be investigated and substantiated. I want my co-teachers to see get this level of understanding for themselves and not just believe in what I say. I am wondering if anyone else has had difficulty fitting this UBD into their classroom because of different types of learners not just because of the standards and time. (Gretchen)

Gretchen: Yes, I've had that problem as well. I actually just recently ran into this issue when looking over a chapter assessment with one of the other teachers. She has used the same chapter test for many years but wanted to look at it "to see if there was anything we should change". We got to a part where students needed to fill in the correct missing verbs which would assess their reading comprehension as well as their knowledge of past-tense verb conjugation. (Sorry if you have no idea what that all meant, lol.) The teacher said that she normally tells them the verbs to put in the blanks so that all they have to do is write them in the correct form of the past tense because "they just don't get it... they never know the right verb to use". So I was thinking - and said something - about the fact that, if they have been incapable of choosing the right verb, then they obviously don't understand what they're reading, which is a problem. We need to do a better job at giving them more meaningful practice with using those skills and learning those concepts. She agreed but then said that "it wouldn't matter... they still wouldn't be able to do it". What was so frustrating to me was, not only that she was so negative about the students' capabilities, but that the assessment was going to have to be the same for both of us because that's how the department operates. Either I was going to have to lower my expectations for my students or she would have to agree to teach the concept differently/more effectively. So, when discussing ideas on how to teach the concepts/skills differently (based on the ideas we've been learning in UbD), she frequently made the comment "yeah, but..." and came up with reasons why she/we wouldn't be able to do things that way or why it wouldn't work. I suppose it was good that she at least said "yeah, but" instead of "are you out of your mind?!" but it was still frustrating that, because of her past experiences, ideas on how to teach and on how students learn, she wasn't even willing to give new ideas a try.

This chapter really clarified the difference between //knowing facts// and //understanding concepts//. One of the most helpful sections was about how to address understanding of skills (I know a lot of math people feel the same way!). The explanation that particularly made the idea of applying the UbD style of design to //skills// more clear to me, was: “the learner should come to understand the skill’s //underlying concepts, why// the skill is important and what it helps accomplish, what //strategies and techniques// maximize its effectiveness, and //when// to use them.” (p.133) This is one of those quotes that I feel like I should have at the top of all of my unit plans so that I can literally answer the questions and make sure that I assess for those things. If my students aren’t guided toward developing those abilities/understandings of the skills I’m hoping they learn, then I need to re-think what I’m doing. I almost want to make those my guiding essential questions for each skill – just replace “the skill” with the actual skill. It’s similar to figure 6.3 but maybe too simplified... what do you think? 1. What are the skill’s //underlying concepts//? 2. //Why// is the skill important? 3. What does it help accomplish? 4. What //strategies and techniques// maximize its effectiveness? 5. //When// do I use those strategies/techniques? I really like the idea of putting that quote on the top of your plans. It would be a nice reminder about what's important and where your focus should be for student understanding and eventual transfer. If you feel it may be to simplified compared to the 6.3 figure, then maybe you could use these questions to focus lessons or smaller groups of lessons within a unit which includes both these questions and those in the figure. I see the value of the questions from the figure, but not all of them apply to every subject, where as the quote you picked out does seem to qualify for every skill based unit.

The “understandings” I learned in school are unfortunately not based on deep conceptual understanding. I was one of those students that the authors mention in the fictional Bob James story – I aced most quizzes and tests but couldn’t truly apply the material. In my own teaching I’m torn on the nature of my understandings. I feel like a lot of it is skill based, but will help build on future, deeper understandings. I really like the idea of using the phrase “Students should understand that…” to help focus our understandings. I haven’t tried any ideas on my own yet but feel that the use of this phrase can really help in making sure our teaching is truly focused on the big, transferable ideas. This chapter really made me think about what I’m teaching and how I’m teaching it. For the first time I truly see how I can use UbD in my primary level classroom. On page 128 the authors say that “it (an understanding) summarizes a transferable idea that we want students to grasp eventually.” They also state on page 133 that “understanding-based teaching of skills develops more fluent, effective, and autonomous proficiency than does instruction relying on rote learning and drill-and-practice methods alone.” The word eventually and the last quote are what really hit it home for me in terms of how UbD can be used with younger students. Yes, a lot of my instruction may be skill based, but it still needs to be based on understandings so my students will eventually be able to use and apply those skills in the correct way. As a teacher, I need to start focusing my instruction more on the big picture and less on what I need to get today so I can get it all in and covered by the end of the year. (Jen)

I really like this chapter a lot and specially the note of misconception alert. I understand the purpose of using UbD in the classroom. On page 137, the author shows us how to identify essential questions and understandings, so we can use it when we are writing our lesson plans. Some of my instructions are skills and knowledge based but also students need to have a level of understanding, therefore that knowledge and skills can be successfully learned. I tried to apply UbD in my classroom and it didn't work so well. I think that one of the factors that had an impact was the language barrier of my students. I teach ELL students who recently came to this country and have lack of English language. So, I agree with Gretchen that not only standards and time can influence UbD but also students' difficulties. In my school, some teachers tried to implement UbD but a few of them were successfull. The ones that succeed were the ones that have students who are proficient in English language. It is very frustrated when we try new ideas and they don't work (Silvia).

I agree with the misconception alert. I think most standards, especially my social studies standards, should not say "students will understand how to..."I like the idea of saying "students will understrand that..." because it implies that there is so much more to the basic information and facts that we are trying to get our student to know. Obviously there are the basic facts and dates that we want our students to know in history, but history is so much more than facts and dates. History has causes and effects, and what has happened throughout history has shaped the world that we live in. I think by saying "students will understand that..." it goes beyond the understanding of the facts and gets into deeper understanding of the causes and effects. I liked this chapter in the sense that it discusses learning more than the facts. Similar to what someone said in an earlier post I would always do well on tests and quizzes because I spent so much time memorizing the facts, and not truly getting a deeper understanding of the material. I also think that a lot of that stuff that I memorized I soon forgot. I think the more you have your students work to get that deeper understanding the more likely they are going to truly learn and remember the material. I think this chapter was similar to the others in the sense that learning should go beyond the facts and the "what, when, and where" and gets deeper into the topic by asking more questions like, "why and how, and what were the effects" We need to make sure the students understand why the material is important and why should learn it, not just the facts of the material. (Dan)

I also really liked this chapter. It is so important for us as teachers to really think about what and how our students are understanding the material that we are presenting to them. I really like this quote "Meaning is between the lines, not in the lines. Students should use comprehension strategies like summarizing, questioning, predicting, etc, to draw their understandings and create meaning for themselves." (page 129) For me, this sums up understanding and learning. Learning is the grey area.. it is not black or white. There is so much depth to what were teaching. This sort of reminds me of the new common CORE and where it is going with teaching. The new common CORE is more in depth, therefore more rigorous. I think teachers will now be thinking about a more student centered classroom, and a more individualized classroom.. where students can take learning into their own hands. That way, they can use strategies to create meaning for themselves. (Ally)

How 'refreshing' this chapter was! Honestly, they had me at the first quote. It is intriguing to have these profound statements of what understanding means and how one can effectively craft it. In //The Process of Education//, Bruner noted that "a curriculum ought to be built around the great issues, principles and values that a sociey deems worthy of the continual concern of its members." (52) Wiggins, through this chapter, affirmed that point by stating some distinguishing features of understanding. On page 128, he said that an understanding refers to //transferable, big ideas// having __enduring value__ beyond a specific topic. An understanding is enduring for 2 reasons- 1. due to its importance and 2. due to its ability to remain in the minds of students since it enables the transfer of the key ideas in various situations. Wiggins also mentioned frequently that an understanding is inference drawn from facts. It is not something that one could take at face value as a "given" but rather, after having analyzed and synthesized the information, a conclusion can be reached. So an understanding will cause the learner to seek the underlying concepts, figure out why the skill is useful, what it accomplishes, as well as the strategies to maximize its effectiveness and when to use them. This chapter was very useful to me because one of the things the author spoke about was how stage 1 was geared toward the designer of the lesson/curriculum and not the learner. It would then be up to the designer to bridge the gap between the expert and novice understanding in stage 3. So, when writing "Student will understand..,"it is important to include "that...." because "desired understandings are best stated in propositional form."(145). In addition, utilizing the two types of understanding (topical and overarching) is necessary in design. In all, the fictitious Bob James sums up what I was thinking. "The benefit of getting sharper on what, specifically, my students need to come away understanding [is that] it will make it easier for me to finish designing the assessments and lessons to produce those understandings." (145) (Ugochi).

I thought it was interesting that the title of this chapter was "Crafting Understandings" with the key word being "crafting" This idea was really emphasized near the end of the chapter when the authors brought up the idea of "The Expert Blind Spot" meaning that there is often a failure to grasp that key lessons involve understandings that have to be engineered. I also thought it was interesting to point out that the challenge of crafting understandings is to make the understandings be reasonable. That is a good tip to keep in mind, and relates to development appropriateness. In this chapter, understanding was summarized as having 5 key components. First of all, understanding has to be an important inference. What is interesting to me about this, is that making inferences is a skill that is taught in the primary grades especially in reading comprehension strategies. Even as adults, we have become very proficient in making inferences. When we plan to teach, we should be crafting learning that allows the students to make these inferences. The second is that an understanding has to refer to a transferable big idea with enduring value. We have discussed this theme repeatedly throughout our course, and that confirms that is the significance of this entire UbD philosohpy. Third, understanding involves an abstract and counterintuitive thought process that intersects with easily misunderstood ideas. Fourth, an understanding is best aquired by uncovering. This can be crafted in how we plan our units-whether thematic or cross-curricular, or project-based. It seems like it should happen slowly, over time. Last, an understanding summarizes important strategic principles in skill areas. An example of the reading comprehension strategies such as summarizing, questioning, predicting, and using context clues was given in the book. However, I also see this often when I craft problem-solving strategies in elementary mathematics. This is when skills are being applied using various math problem-solving strategies (such as work backward, act it out, or use logical reasoning). (Colleen) The Expert Blind Spot really resonated with me this week because as a sub it is something I run up against more often than I should, especially in my upper grades (4th-5th). For example, while teaching 5th grade science, I quickly glance over the lesson as I'm preparing for the day and believe that I have a good grasp on the material-at least enough to cover it for that day. However, as we're reading the text and discussing it as a class, we come to something which is novel and I am unprepared to address properly. Thus we simply read the material and gloss over that part, while I'm praying they either "get it" from simply reading it, or the classroom teacher has some activity planned to better address the idea/theory. In glancing over the material it all seems so obvious to me, but when I get to working with it with the students, their blank stares or lack of responses really "blind side me" and it becomes a struggle to know how to "uncover" what I would consider a given so that the students can synthesize it and make it personal to their learning. (I know those terms-and better ones-were used in the chapter, but I can't seem to locate them.)

What I can remember from high school is that deep conceptual understanding was used in some classes and not in others. A lot of my history classes involved simply taking notes and memorizing facts (I agree. My high school history classes were taught in the same way. My teacher had hundreds of facts about what we need to know and then would test us on them. One example was we had to list 100 facts of Alexander the Great. I can remember only a few now. (Chase S)) I also agree (this is Colleen) although I personally liked History and found it very interesting, the memorizing of facts came easy for me even though I didn't "understand" it. The worst thing I remember having to memorzie was Hamlet's Soliloquy. "To be or not to be, that is the question..." WHAT the heck was the point of that whole thing? I sure was proud when I got it down and recited it away to the teacher but, can't remember anything but the first line today. It wasn’t until my senior civics class where we were truly given the opportunity to understand the concepts being taught. For example we weren’t told how the election process worked; we were given the task of creating a mock election and going through all the steps in the process. I learned and understood this concept better than if I had simple been told how the election process worked. College was the same way. Some classes were set up in a way that allowed students to make inferences and uncover big ideas that could be transferred beyond that class, and others were setup in a way that students were simply given information to remember. It’s important as teachers that we focus our lessons on a small number of transferable big ideas that focus on understanding. That’s easier said than done! A lot of our standards that we are given to teach come across as facts to be learned by the students. It’s hard to take what we believe is a simple fact and teach it in a way that promotes understanding and transferability. A quote on page 132 says, “Even after the meaning of all the words or data are clear, we may not get their significance.” A student can memorize a fact but needs to be able to question that fact, make connections to other facts, and apply that fact to various situations. I try to use the general idea of applying knowledge as much as possible in my class. If it’s a simple fact that they are required to know, I want them to be able to apply that fact to something significant or something real. My goal is that the students understand why the “fact” or concept is important and how it affects them. (Jason)

On page 132, the author wrote, "To 'get' a fact requires only that we grasp the meaning of the words or see the data. To "get" an understanding requires more: Even after the meanings of all the words or data are clear, we may not get their significance. We have to ask questions of the facts, connect them to other facts, and try to apply them in various situations. An understand has to be worked through and validated as an appropriate and helpful conclusion, not merely accepted as a statement of fact." I found these sentences to be the backbone of the chapter. If I was able to do this everyday as a teacher. I feel like I would be teaching or helping my students build the knowledge and understand that they deserve.(ChaseS)

I also highlighted this quote as I was going through the chapter. I agree with you Chase that living by this statement would help us to be better teachers. I also found it difficult reading this chapter, because in some ways I really felt cheated. The way that I was taught going through school was much more fact and skill driven. Somewhere along the line I learned to be more inquizitive but I am not sure when or how that happened. My fear is that it didn't happen for many of my classmates. Sometimes I notice this lack of understanding or maybe it is the inability to go back to the novel stage of your education with my co-teachers. They will know that a child needs help in a certain area but not be sure how to get them to that understanding. There was one other quote towards the end of the chapter that I found very enlightening and reaffirming on pg 138: ''......key lessons involve understandings to be engineered and not facts to be transmitted." (Gretchen)

As I was reading through this chapter these few sentences really stuck out to me. " An understanding summarizes a sought-after lesson based on facts and experiences. It summarizes a transferable idea that we want students to grasp eventually. It draws conclusions from various facts that make up the content." I just really liked how understanding something can be so easy if following these suggestions. As I read under the "Understanding Defined" section it made me think of a typical lesson taught in U.S. History. "Enduring understandings use discrete facts or skills to focus on larger concepts, principles, or processes. They derive from and enable transfer: They are applicable to new situations within or beyond the subject." This made me think of the discussion of the Civil War and its factors. So many students think it all has to do with slavery but through teaching more about industrial facts and westward expansion it helps them see the larger concepts and allows them to transfer these facts into what happens next. Then taking all of those factors and seeing what in today's times is similar. I do agree that the misconception alert is so dead on! It practically sounds just like the majority of our content standards. I like how they offer a suggestion on changing the prompt to "Students should understand **that**..... Oh no.... " At least by doing this you are encouraging your students to think outside the box instead of just simple answers. I love how the author tries to challenge us and our understandings with this: Many of the things we say we know as facts have never been personally verified. We accept them as "givens," even when we do not fully understand them. Worse, many of the big ideas we have to teach may have been taught to us as if they were facts for later recall. (They use the example of our planet and its shape and movement and how it was thought long ago that it was flat and that the sun revolved around the planet until we found out the truth.) I am in total agreement with how the section suggests learning about the misconceptions that students have about a particular subject. They suggest to mentally review predictable misconceptions or possible misunderstandings about a forthcoming topic or skill. (Julie Evans)

I //like the chart on page 126 (I like all the charts in this book actually!) It allows for concise examples and I like that. It gives examples of understanding and non-examples of understanding. The one tthat I liked and made me really think about (ISN"T THIS THE WHOLE IDED OF UBD AND EDUCATION-TO THINK) was the non example of "water covers 3/4 of the earth as opposed to "when liquid water disappears, it turns into water vapor and can reappear as liquid if the air is cooled! WOW! Now that is more intersting to think about and again THINK is what we really want students to lLearn how to do and UBD is the tool to get them there! I also like the quote on page 127 that understanding will have to be uncovered because it is not obvious. I really like that statement because iit helps me to really understand (no pun intended) what actions or things that need to be done in order for my students to understand. I think the students would like the word uncover better. I think tthey will react in a more positive manner. To go a step farther on page 129 the student need to INFER, which for me is another way to say uncover and they have to learn how to test, question, investigate, anayze, criticize...this makes me think about standards in science especially, but I need to learn how to do these things in all areas, classess etc. So for me UNCOVER and INFER are CRITICAL to my lessons I design! (Karen)//