1. Understanding by Design
Gaining Clarity on Our Goals

2. How to Use Backward Design –
Stage 1
 Use national, state, or provincial content standards
as a starting point.
 “Unpack” the nouns and verbs in the standards to
point to the “big ideas”
 Use the template as a tool for developing a
coherent, purposeful, and efficient design for
learning.

3. NETS for Students

5. Big Ideas…
 It’s the central and organizing notion.
 It’s the core idea in a subject
 It has lasting value and transfers to other
inquiries and requires uncovering because it
is not obvious.

6. Essential Questions…
 Have no simple ‘right answer; they are meant
to be argued and discussed (discovered,
uncovered)
 Designed to provoke and sustain inquiry
 Often address the foundational or historical
issues of a subject
 Lead to more questions
 Naturally come back again when learning
 Encourage ongoing re-thinking of big ideas,
assumptions, prior learning (transference…)
 Could be overarching or topical

7. Understandings…
 Frame the desired understanding as a full-sentence
generalization in response to the phrase, “Students
will understand that…”
 Beware of stating an understanding as a truism or
vague generality. (Triangles have 3 sides – truism or
vague generality?- The U.S. is a complex country –
truism or vague generality?) – Check to see your
stated understandings don’t end with an adjective
(i.e. fractions are important)
 Avoid the phrase, “Students will understand how
to…”
 “Understanding is the ability to transfer learning to
new, different, and unique experiences” - Wiggins

8. Big Ideas, Understandings, and
Essential Questions
Big Idea
Topic or
Content Standard
Essential
Essential
Understanding
Understanding Question
Question

9. Knowledge…
What we want students to know
 Vocabulary
 Terminology
 Definitions
 Key factual information
 Formulas
 Critical details
 Important events and people
 Sequence and timeline

10. Skills…
What we want students to be able to do
 Basic skills – decoding, arithmetic
computation
 Communication skills – listening, speaking,
writing
 Thinking skills – compare, infer, analyze,
interpret
 Research, inquiry, investigation skills
 Study skills – notetaking
 Interpersonal group skills

11. Unpacking Goals – Method 1
Established Goals: 1. Creativity and Innovation
Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct
knowledge, and develop innovative products and
processes using technology.
Stated or Implied BIG IDEAS Stated or Implied real-world
In the NOUNS and ADJECTIVES: Performances in the VERBS:
Understandings: Essential Questions:
Students will understand that…
Knowledge: Skills:
What we want students to know… What we want students to do…
Performance Task Ideas:

12. Applying Differentiation to the
UbD Framework
Stage 1 – Desired Results
Establish Goal (Content Standards)
Should not be differentiated
Understandings Essential Questions
Knowledge Skill May be differentiated
Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence
Performance Tasks Other Evidence
Key Criteria
Stage 3 – Learning Plan
Should be differentiated

13. Six Facets of
Understanding
What to assess?

14. The argument for performance assessment
as a necessity, not a luxury……
“Students must perform
effectively with knowledge
to convince us that they
really understand what
quizzes and short-answer
tests only suggest they
get”

16. Transfer: the link
The six facets link the stages
Use the six facets as the
test of whether you are
truly measuring
“understanding” of the big
ideas/essential questions

17. Explanation
Insightful connections and
illustrations
Require students to explain
what they know and good
reasons in support of it
Explain “why” it is correct

18. Interpretation: what does it
mean?
Show significance
Reveal importance
Recognize relevance

19. Application: use knowledge
effectively
“show understanding by
using it, adapting it,
customizing it”
New situations, realistic
context

20. Perspective: critical and
insightful points of view
Casting familiar ideas in a
new light
Expose questionable and
unexamined assumptions

21. Empathy: walk in another’s
shoes
Ability to get inside another
person’s feelings and
viewpoint
Differs from perspective
Inside versus outside view

22. Self-knowledge: Wisdom to
know one’s ignorance
How thoughts and actions
inform as well as prejudice
understanding
Must first understand
ourselves before we
understand the world