Understanding By Design

This week at UVEI we are learning unit design, based on the Understanding By Design (UbD) methodology, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. The three step process involves:

1. Desired results:  What are your established goals, enduring understandings, essential questions, etc. 
2. Assessment:  How will you assess the learning?  What are your performance tasks and other evidence?
3. Learning Plan:  What activities will you do in class to achieve the desired results?  

For the past two days we've had David Grant, one of the original planners behind UbD, as a guest speaker.  We've talked a lot about how people learn, mindsets, facets of understanding, and much more.   In between the lecture components we are also working on designing our own units to, hopefully, be taught this term.  

I'm working on a social studies unit my mentor teacher called "people in the neighborhood."  It seemed pretty straightforward when she suggested it last week, but as I delve into the details I'm uncovering plenty of questions.  For starters, I quickly found myself using the word "community" instead of "neighborhood."  I'll have to discuss the difference with her tomorrow and see what she intended.  Also, "neighborhood" could be very tightly defined, such as the streets around my house, or more broadly defined, such as the general area we live in, or more generically defined, such as a typical neighborhood.  I'm not sure what she had in mind.  I've also heard a lot about "community helpers" and I'm wondering if that's what she had in mind.  Also, has she taught this lesson in the past or will it be a new lesson?  Many things on my mind.  Fortunately UVEI has given us tomorrow to go to our schools, meet the class, and discuss the unit plan with our new mentor teachers. 

I enjoyed Christmas vacation, but I'm excited to get back to it, to meet the kindergarteners I'll be spending the rest of the year with!