UbD Stage 1: Identify Desired ResultsEssential Questions, Enduring Understandings, Key

Knowledge and Skills

Objectives

• Identify and describe components of Stage 1 in Understanding by Design– Essential Questions– Enduring Understandings– Key Knowledge and Skills

• Identify and critique (or create) Stage 1 components of first unit plan

Essential Questions

“It is through the process of actively interrogating the content that students strengthen and deepen their understanding.”

Standards

Big Ideas

Essential Questions

Essential Questions - Inquiry

Look at the handouts on your table. Examine the “Essential Questions” vs. the “Not Essential Questions” and the Additional examples for your content.

• What traits to the essential questions have in common?

• How do they differ from the others?

Essential Questions – Defining Characteristics

1. Open-ended: no single, final, and correct answer2. Thought-provoking and intellectually engaging:

sparks discussion and debate3. Require higher-order thinking: analysis, inference,

evaluation, prediction4. Include important, transferable ideas within or

across disciplines5. Raise additional questions: spark inquiry6. Require support and justification7. Recur over time: should be revisited frequently

Essential Questions – Identify Activity

1. In what year was the Battle of Hastings fought?

2. How do effective writers hook and hold their readers?

3. Is biology destiny?4. Onomatopoeia – what’s up with that?5. What are examples of animals adapting to

their environment?6. What are the limits of arithmetic?

Essential Questions – 3 Types

• Overarching: frame entire courses and programs of study; provide conceptual framework for curriculum that spirals around the same EQs unit to unit and grade to grade.

• Topical: help students come to particular understandings around specific topics and skills; specific to the topic of a unit.

• Metacognitive and Reflective: essential to effective learning and performance

Essential Questions – Intent Trumps Form

Why you ask a question matters more than how you phrase it.

“What’s the pattern?”• A 2nd grade teacher asks, "Boys and girls, look at the

numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, ___. What comes next? What's the pattern?"

• An Algebra 1 teacher presents students with a set of data and asks them to plot two related variables on a graph. "What do you notice? What's the pattern?"

• A science teacher shows a data table of incidents of AIDS cases over a 15-year period, disaggregated by age, gender, region, and socioeconomic status. His question to students is "What's the pattern (or patterns)?"

Essential Questions - Application

• Log in to Atlas and select your course and first unit.

• Examine the essential questions for that unit:– Do they fit the characteristics we’ve identified?– Are they overarching, topical, or metacognitive?– Is the number of questions sufficient for the unit of

study (do more need to be added or do some need to be deleted)?

• Make any necessary adjustments.

Understanding-The Bridge from Essential Questions to Understanding

• How do essential questions and understandings relate?– Our essential questions point toward

important transferable ideas that are worth understanding, even as they provide a means for exploring those ideas.

Essential Questions

Understanding

Understanding-The Bridge from Essential Questions to Understanding

Essential Questions UnderstandingsHow does where you live influence how you live?

The geography, climate, and natural resources of a region influence the economy and lifestyle of the people living there.

What will happen next? How sure are you?

Statistical analysis and data display often reveal patterns. Patterns enable prediction.

How can a diet that is "healthy" for one person be unhealthy for another?

People have different dietary needs based on age, activity level, weight, and various health considerations.

How can motion express emotion?

Dance is a language of shape, space, timing, and energy that can communicate ideas and feelings.

Understanding-The Big Ideas

Understandings synthesize what students should understand,

—not just know or do—as a result of studying a particular content area.

Understandings-The 6 Facets

• When we truly understand, we…– Can explain- via generalization and principles; make

insightful connections and provide examples or illustrations– Can interpret- tell meaningful stories, make the object of

understanding personal or accessible– Can apply- effectively use and adapt what we know in

diverse and real contexts– Have perspective- see and hear points of view through

critical eyes and ears; see the big picture.– Can empathize- find value in what others might find odd or

different; perceive sensitively on the basis of prior experience

– Have self-knowledge- show metacognitive awareness; perceive the factors that shape and impede our own understanding

Understanding-Knowledge vs. Understanding

Knowing is not understanding. There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.” -Charles Kettering

• Knowledge: is what you know (facts and information

• Understanding: is the ability to apply what you know and use it to develop a deeper meaning-an inference drawn from facts

Understanding-The Difference Between Knowledge and Understanding

Knowledge UnderstandingThe facts The meaning of the factsA body of coherent facts The “theory” that provides

coherence and meaning to those facts

Verifiable claims Fallible, in-process theoriesRight or wrong A matter of degree or

sophistication

I know something to be true I understand why it is, what makes it knowledge

I respond on cue with what I know

I judge when to and when not to use what I know

Understandings-Identify Activity

1. An effective story engages the ready by setting up tensions about what will happen next.

2. Water covers three-fourths of the earth’s surface.

3. Things are always changing.4. Correlation does not ensure causality.5. Decoding is necessary but not sufficient

in reading for meaning.

Understanding-Defining Characteristics

• An understanding:– Is an important inference, drawn from

experience– Refers to transferable, big ideas having

enduring value beyond a specific topic.– Involves abstract ideas– Is best acquired by “uncovering” and “doing”– Summarizes important strategic principles in

skill areas

Understanding-2 types

• Overarching: frame entire courses and programs of study; provide conceptual framework for curriculum that spirals around the same Understandings unit to unit and grade to grade.

• Topical: help students come to particular understandings around specific topics and skills; specific to the topic of a unit.

Understanding-Application

• Log in to Atlas and select your course and first unit.

• Examine the understanding for that unit:– Do they fit the characteristics we’ve identified?– Are they overarching or topical– Is the number of questions sufficient for the unit of

study (do more need to be added or do some need to be deleted)?

• Make any necessary adjustments.

Knowledge and Skills

• In order for students to perform well on assessments and competently answer essential questions, …– What should they KNOW?– What should they BE ABLE TO DO?

Key Knowledge

• What key knowledge will the learner acquire during this unit? – Students will know…

• Vocabulary/terminology• Definitions• Key factual information• Important events and people• Sequence/timeline

Key Skills

• What should learners be able to do as a result of such knowledge? – Students will be able to …

• Basic skills• Research/inquiry/investigation skills• Thinking skills (problem-solving, decision making)• Study skills

Key Knowledge and Key Skills

• Formulas for calculating surface area and volume

• General health problems caused by poor nutrition

• The steps in the writing process

• Calculate surface area and volume for various 3-dimensional figures

• Plan balanced diets for themselves and others

• Apply the writing process to produce