Curriculum Design

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Curriculum, the content knowledge and skills for every subject area, is best implemented with a clear plan of action so that the learning goal(s), identified standards, and essential questions are the focus of the assessments and instructional activities that are planned and delivered.  

It is the opinion of Teaching and Learning Consulting Network, LLC that the work of Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins in their book Understanding by Design, provides educators with an effective framework for designing and delivering curriculum.  It is an appropriate and useful tool for implementing College and Career Ready Standards/Common Core Standards since the focus is on unit planning - which is a recommended course of action for integrating the requirements of the Common Core.  

Backwards Design

Backwards design is not new. It has been around a long time and used in every aspect of life.  The basic premise of backwards design is "to begin with the end in mind."   It is the major pillar in Wiggins & McTighe's  Understanding by Design Framework.

You wouldn't consider building your house before you had a plan as to what it will look like, what progress you expect to see, a timeline for that progress, and what order you will build it in.  Your lender would require you to include a materials list, specify the builder, determine when you expect for it to be done, estimate how much it will cost, and identify obstacles or revisions might occur.  

So if we do this with our house (and would expect nothing less) then why don't we do this with our unit and lesson planning (curriculum) for our students?

Understanding by Design involves planning with a framework of three stages:  Desired Results, Assessment Evidence, and the Learning Plan. 

Click below for more information on UbD:

Assessment Evidence

Plan Assessments BEFORE instruction.  Determining what students will know and be able to do before the unit is taught improves the chances that the strategies and activities we plan have the greatest impact on achieving the desired results.  So assessment becomes an important piece of the planning puzzle... not so that we teach to the test, but that we teach the content in such a way that when students are assessed (along the way/at the end) we will know what students have learned and what they can do with that learning.  

A balanced assessment plan is preferable because it provides a "scrapbook" of evidence as to the progress and depth of student understanding.  Ideally this would include several types of assessment given throughout the learning experience from pre-assessments, informal and formal checks for understanding, formative assessments, student reflections, as well as summative assessments.  Assessment does not necessarily equate to "test" so educators must learn to extract important data to inform teaching and learning from a variety of sources and formats.

Performance tasks (also referred to as authentic assessment) are essential to determining student understanding.  They provide more challenge for students and require a different type of thinking to develop the appropriate response(s). Because they are designed to be "real world" in scope, the problem or task requires the student to use the knowledge and skills they have acquired to solve the problem or produce the product. Many people have questions or "yes buts" concerning the time it takes to plan and conduct performance tasks. Grant Wiggins answers those concerns in this interview published in Edutopia.  

Examples of performance tasks can be found in the Other Resources section below.

Understanding

When teaching for Understanding, we often equate understanding with knowledge. From Wiggins & McTighe, we find that it involves much more than that. 

Understanding is the ability to apply knowledge and skills in authentic settings.  It involves knowing what, when, and how to use the knowledge and skills that have been acquired. Understanding is much more about doing rather than just knowing.

To achieve understanding using backwards design, we begin with the end in mind by establishing Learning Goals that are taken from state, local or other standards, followed by:
  • Enduring Understandings are identified that go beyond the lesson or unit.  These are big ideas and concepts that connect what is to be learned to real life and stick with us long after "the test."  
  • Essential Questions  are created (derived from the enduring understandings) that cause students to delve deeper in the the learning, using the knowledge and skills they have acquired to go beyond "right answers" and consider the possibilities that exist as we make meaningful, transferable connections to the larger picture. 
  • Specific Knowledge and Skills are listed (determined by unpacking the learning goals) that students will acquire during the learning experience. 

Learning Plan

The Learning Plan intentionally occurs at the end of the backwards design process. 
 
For many educators, this feels backwards because we have been taught that planning engaging activities is the key to student success.  But using that theory only means that the activities are interesting but may not have the right focus or help students make meaningful connections to the desired outcomes.  

We are not activity planners - we are planners of learning, of which engaging, but meaningful activities are a significant part.

Once the learning goals have been established and the evidence of learning has been determined, then the Learning Plan can fall into place.  It is to be designed to provide the necessary content, skills, and learning experiences that lead students to successful completion of the learning goals.

To that end, instructional considerations include sequential progression of skills and content, opportunities for processing, inquiry, practice, and revision.  Also included as an important part of the instructional plan are the types and placement of assessments that inform both the teacher (instructional purposes) and the learner (progress toward understanding).

The UbD process encourages the use of balanced instruction and uses a simple acronym, WHERETO, that focuses the use of selected strategies by having the teacher plan for: the purpose of learning (Where are we going); Interest (Hook); Equip the learner with knowledge, skills & experience; opportunities to Reflect, Rethink, and Revise; Evaluate learning progress, differentiating or personalizing learning (Tailoring), and meaningful Organization of the learning experiences.

Many instructional considerations can and should be included when planning for what both the teacher and the students will do during the learning experience.  Those might include (but are NOT limited to):
  • Marzano 9 strategies
  • Differentiated Instruction
  • Literacy Strategies
  • 21st Century Skills
  • College and Career Ready Skills

More information on instructional considerations can be found here.

Examples & Resources

Examples of Performance Tasks:
         (PALS:  multiple sources in one site)
          (Baltimore Public Schools)
Authentic Learning and Assessment

UbD Design Guide Worksheets:  Creating Authentic Assessment using Wiggins and McTighe's GRASPS process. (Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product (performance or purpose works too), Standards (and criteria for success).  This resource will help you walk through the process, provide examples, and alternatives to the GRASPS model that still meet the criteria for developing authentic assessments.

4 Paths to Engaging Authentic Purpose and Audience.  Author and consultant, John McCarthy, advocates for student voice in their learning.  Identifying a real audience helps give students purpose and helps differentiate the learning experience.  This is reflected in their writing or product.  These 4 pathways mentioned in this article involve:  Problem Solving, Advocacy, Awareness, and Publication.  Identifying the pathway immediately gives purpose to the next steps required by the project. 

Project Based Learning  - Students actively explore real world problems, using deeper thinking, to come up with solutions based on research and evidence.  This is a interdisciplinary approach to learning requiring that the student "do" rather than memorize.  Edutopia provides a wealth of free educational resources including ones that support the understanding and implementation of Project Based Learning.  Click HERE or on the Project Based Learning title for a direct link to Edutopia's Project Based Learning resources. 
  • "The ongoing act of learning different subjects simultaneously. This is achieved by guiding students to identify, through research, a real-world problem...developing its solution using evidence to support the claim, and presenting the solution through a multi-media approach based in a set of 21st Century tools."  Heather Wolpert-Gawron, in her 2015 blog post, "What the Heck is Project Based Learning,"  offers an understandable explanation of project based learning as a vehicle to support content through an active learning experience.  Read more of her blog HERE. 
Other Assessment Resources

K-12 Curriculum Examples and Resources:  
*Teaching and Learning Consulting Network, LLC does not endorse or determine reliability of claims of effectiveness or alignment.  Information is intended only for reader consideration.