Understanding – Page 3

March 17, 2016May 17, 2016

42: Coverage vs Uncoverage

Chapter 10 in Wiggins, Grant P., and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998. Print.

Coverage

coverage of surface details with little depth
treats all facts as discrete parts of equal value
teaching by mentioning
tends to cover up big ideas
Pitfalls to avoid:
- taking textbook information at face value
- using textbook as a syllabus
- going through textbook in page order without regard for learning goals
- assessing things as discrete pieces of information

Uncoverage

Learn ideas by testing them in various scenarios
Learn ideas by using them to organize other ideas, experiences, and data
Helpful practices:
- use textbook as a tool for finding information related to essential questions and enabling skills
- read sections of textbook in a sequence that supports learning goals
- supplement textbook with primary sources
- let students conduct inquiry based work that culminates in a performance assessment
- make abstract ideas real by using them to make sense of data and/or experiences
- use dense statements in text as basis for essential questions

Planning is not the same thing as harvesting. We promote student misunderstandings when we present knowledge as something to be apprehended as opposed to comprehended.

Teaching on its own can not produce understanding. The learner must make active attempts to understand to develop understanding. Only experts and highly gifted students can hear knowledge and immediately understand its meanings, applications, and implications on their own. Teachers need to create risk-friendly environments and need to teach students to take risks while learning in order for students to conduct the tests and inquiries that build understanding.

Preparation Steps

Early in the year and sprinkled throughout, conduct activities that promote and improve a safe positive risk-friendly learning environment
Analyze ideas and skills embedded in standards. Analyze NOUNS and VERBS in standards.
Brainstorm and research scenarios that students can use to test their knowledge and skills
Select which of the 6 facets of understanding can get students to apply knowledge and skills at another level that facilitates deeper understanding
Decide on a logical sequence for scaffolding and assessing learning goals
Find textbook excepts and primary sources that support learning goals

Early Implementation Steps

Teach students how to read academic texts
Facilitate inquiry-based activities that provide opportunities to interpret or evaluate their knowledge and skills using experiences and/or data
Ask students to reflect on how abstract ideas relate to their research and experiences
Ask students to describe how they are connecting different concepts and skills to make sense of phenomena and to solve problems
Give students lots of formative feedback that inform them as to whether or not their uncoverage attempts are leading to accurate understandings

Advanced Implementation Steps

Develop criteria for coverage and uncoverage and ask students to evaluate learning activities using that criteria
Provide opportunities for students to use uncoverage criteria to design learning tasks they can use to explore material

March 17, 2016May 10, 2016

35: Instructional Practices for Deepening Understanding (1 of 2)

Chapter 7 in Tomlinson, Carol A., and Jay McTighe. Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006. Print.

Use Essential Questions in Teaching
- use essential (driving) questions to launch projects and revisit throughout the project
- make questions provocative and student friendly
- make questions point toward key understandings
- Examples:
  - Math: Can everything be quantified?
  - Science: To what extent are science and common sense related?
  - Bio: How are form and function connected in the natural world?
- Can use essential question as an open-ended pre-assessment at start of a project
- Can use essential question as a diagnostic question throughout the project
- Less is more – 1 to 5 essential questions per unit
- Help students personalize the questions
- Post essential questions in the classroom
Use 6 Facets of Understanding as Instructional Tools: Use 6 facets of understanding to generate activities to explore content
- 1 – Explain: demonstrate, derive, describe, design, exhibit, express, induce, instruct, justify, model, predict, prove, show, synthesize, teach
- 2 – Interpret: analogies, critique, document, evaluate, illustrate, judge, make meaning of, make sense of, metaphors, read between the lines, represent, tell a story of, translate
- 3 – Apply: adapt, build, create, debug, decide, design, exhibit, invent, perform, produce, propose, test, use
- 4 – Perspective: analyze, argue, compare, constrast, criticize, infer
- 5 – Empathy: assume role of, believe, be like, be open to, consider, imagine, relate, role-play
- 6 – Self-knowledge: be aware of, realize, recognize, reflect, self-assess

Exploring essential questions models how knowledge is made. This contradicts the common misconception that knowledge was not made; it always existed. Essential questions answer the WHY question for why knowledge and skills are important.

The six facets allow students to explore knowledge and deepen understanding in a variety of ways. Ladders are false metaphors for learning. The brain needs both higher order and lower order thinking skills to make sense and meaning of new material. Lower order skills don’t always need to be presented first (example: we learned how to speak before we learned grammar).

Preparation Steps

Design provocative essential question(s) that are student friendly and open enough to serve as a pre-assessment and diagnostic tool
Post essential (driving) question(s) in the classroom
Decide what facets of understanding will be used to explore each learning target
Use verbs above (and research) to design activities that use several facets to explore learning
Use 6 facets to design and evaluate product rubrics. See 6 facets question stems and 6 facets scaffolding ideas articles.

Early Implementation Steps

Use essential question as an early journal prompt to pre-assess student perceptions and knowledge related to the project
Guide students to generate many questions related to essential questions and research these
Use essential question at strategic points in project to assess how student knowledge is progressing
Implement learning activities that are aligned to standards and leverage several facets of understanding
Use frequent formative assessments to give students specific feedback that they use to improve learning and products and to fine tune instruction. See article on descriptive feedback.

Advanced Implementation Steps

Teach students 6 facets and use it as a framework for students to design learning tasks that demonstrate their mastery of learning targets (these activities can replace re-tests)
Teach students to use 6 facets of understanding to reflect on their own learning and to explain which facets are helping them make a stronger deeper connections to learning targets

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

31: Core Beliefs Connecting Curricula to Student Diversity

Chapter 6 in Tomlinson, Carol A., and Jay McTighe. Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2006. Print.

All students should consistently experience curricula rooted in the important ideas of a discipline that requires them to make meaning of information and think at high levels

All students develop products that apply knowledge of core ideas
Differentiate for enabling skills that help students understand core ideas and skills

Students need opportunities to learn the basics and opportunities to apply them in meaningful ways

Communicate connections between basic and complicated applications
Do not deny any students the opportunity to use their skills to play the game inherent in the discipline

There is a need for balance between student construction of meaning and teacher guides.

Play 3 roles as needed:
1. Direct instructor – for teaching simple concepts
2. Facilitator – for teaching deeper understandings of core concepts
3. Coach – for teaching skills
Guide student reflections on how they are progressing towards enduring understandings

Students need to know the learning goals of a unit or lesson and criteria for successfully demonstrating proficiency with goals.

Share learning goals and rubrics early in lessons and early in projects
Students regularly reflect on how what they are doing relates to big goals

Research has shown that both high and low performing students benefit from classes that use meaning-driven, thought-based, application-focused curricula. Applications of ideas give meaningful contexts for knowledge and skills. Students must make meaning for themselves, it can not be imposed on them. Having students construct meaning will enhance their ability to learn new content. Students need a framework of goals and expectations to help them prioritize their ideas and goals.

Preparation Steps

Analyze standards – identify related key understandings, enabling skills, and misconceptions
Design and implement pre-assessments that assess student knowledge, skills, and misconceptions related to learning goals
Interpret pre-assesment data in order to develop remediation and advanced learning activities (if needed)
Design project contexts that create meaningful ways for students to apply core and foundational knowledge and skills
Develop project rubric prior to launch
Determine types of learning that will occur in workshops and the appropriate teacher roles that go with these learning targets. Design lessons that match the learning goals and the teacher roles that makes the most sense.

Preliminary Implementation Steps

Share the rubric early in the project and facilitate an activity that has students develop knows, need-to-knows and next steps that tie to the rubric
Implement workshops acting as direct instructor, facilitator, and coach depending on the types of learning targets
Use formative assessments frequently to provide specific feedback that students use to improve their products and learning and that teachers use to improve scaffolding
Design activities and tools that make connections between foundational and core skills explicit and clear to students

Advanced Implementation Steps

Develop and implement tools that students regularly reflect on how their completed tasks relate to their understanding of big learning goals
Engage with classroom dialogues that use student input to create and refine project rubrics

Differentiated instruction articles
Learning targets

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

24: Checks for Understanding

Chapter 2 in Berger, Ron, Leah Rugen, and Libby Woodfin. Leaders of Their Own Learning: Transforming School through Student-engaged Assessment. Print.

Checks for Understanding Techniques:

oral, written, and visual techniques, implemented in variety or groupings (individually, in teams), that teachers and students use to assess content

Benefits of Checks for Understanding:

Students monitor their own progress
Students support reasoning with evidence
Students become more independent learners
Students build growth mindset
Students break large goals into smaller ones
Students evaluate progress while learning
Students build metacognitive understanding of their learning process and academic mindsets
Teachers learn if their scaffolding is working

Checks for Understanding: Strategies

Requires culture of trust – see section below
Model and practice techniques with students
Discuss purpose of techniques with students
Discuss importance of honest self assessment
Embed in rich tasks aligned to meaningful learning targets
Structure such that. ALL students participate
Structure such that ALL students support ideas with evidence
Develop good questions that simulate and assess powerful thinking
Assign and quickly assess using “write to learn” tasks
Use varied discussion protocols
Select strategies that match depth of thinking
Use Quick Checks strategies
Strategically listen to students working in small groups and track evidence of progress towards content and character learning targets using checklists
Use checklists to track which students were supported, are struggling, etc
Use cold call strategies – like using popsicle sticks on randomly call on students to respond to a prompt
Use warm call strategies – use popsicle sticks to randomly call on students who will get time to review notes and then respond to a prompt
No opt out – all students given opportunity to either get prompt correct on first call or paraphrase a previously given response on second call
Give students appropriate thinking time to respond to questions
Cue, Clue, Probe, Rephrase
- Cue – use pics, words, etc to help with recall
- Clue – use overt reminders
- Probe – look for reasoning to clarify a correct response or unpack an incorrect response
- Rephrase – pose response in different words
Close lessons with Debriefs –
- Students synthesize and reflect on lesson
- Student gather evidence of their learning
Use exit tickets to modify next day’s lesson
Catch-release – gather students for instruction. release to practice
Release-catch – let students explore material and make initial meaning of material, then gather for instruction

Building a Culture of Trust & Collaboration:

Treat students as partners in learning process – let them co-create learning targets and norms
Be transparent about learning goals and their rationale
Get to know students
Differentiate instruction for individuals
Create norms that promote perseverance and backing up conclusions with evidence
Create climate of courtesy and respect, not compliance and control

See benefits listed above.

Frequently using checks for understanding can help students learn how they are progressing towards learning targets. Using a variety of checks for understanding strategies can keep feedback and reflections fresh and can encourage active participation of ALL students. A culture of trust can help students be honest about their progress and help them to actively seek out help as needed.

Preparation Steps

Research and gather assessment strategies that go well with different types of learning targets (knowledge, skill, reasoning, character)
Design activities that build a culture of trust in classroom
Develop checklists that help teachers observe students for key evidence of understanding
Build a culture of trust early in the year

Early implementation Steps

Model how to use checks for understanding and the importance of using strategy correctly
Students use strategies to communicate what they know and need-to-know
Modifies lesson pacing in response to checks for understanding
Structures lessons and assessments so that all students actively participate
Runs debrief and exit ticket activities with students to check what they learned that day and uses that info to plan for tomorrow

Advanced Implementation Steps

Uses checklists to track observations of students during work time; uses patterns to improve instruction
Designs and uses checklists to track progress towards character learning targets

March 16, 2016May 10, 2016

23: Learning Targets

Chapter 1 in Berger, Ron, Leah Rugen, and Libby Woodfin. Leaders of Their Own Learning: Transforming School through Student-engaged Assessment. Print.

Learning target versus objectives:

Both: aligned to standards, set goals for lesson plans
Objectives: for the teachers
Learning targets: written for and owned by students, written in student friendly language, chunked (1 skill per target)

Benegits of Using Learning Targets to Communicate Goals

Can be used to make students main agents in self assessing and improving learning
Builds investment in learning because students can reference what they know and need-to-know against understandable goals
Helps students define what they are learning and why they are learning it
Builds student motivation by making goals feel accessible
Helps students fit goals into a larger framework
Discussing learning targets builds academic vocabulary
Build sense of ownership and accountability over learning
Can be tied to all school structures: daily work, grades, events, etc.
Reframes lesson in terms of what students will learn, not what teachers will teach
Character learning targets can teach student useful skills such as: risk taking, perseverance, responsibility, etc.

Character Learning Targets

specific expectation that build up positive learning culture and build soft skills needed to learn and to create products
based on school-wide norms for behavior

Design of Learning Targets & Related Materials:

Break down objectives into manageable, student friendly targets
Describe learning goal, not task goal
Prioritize targets
Use long term and supporting targets: 3 to 5 supporting targets per long term targets
Use rigor of targets to design appropriate learning tasks
KISS – limit to one verb and one topic

Implementation of Learning Targets:

Used to track student learning throughout the lesson
Match assessment type to target type
Give students time to discuss learning in terms of targets
Can allow students to revise targets to make them more understandable
Break down target with students
Use targets to conduct timely assessments and reflections on progress
Student read aloud target and restate in their own words to a partner
Can use targets to frame next steps
Can wait to introduce new targets after students have explored new material
Leave time at end of lesson to allow students to use target to debrief lesson
Use informal checks for understanding

School-wide Implementation

Create character targets per grade level
design professional development around learning targets

See benefits listed above.

Learning targets can be used to communicate goals, build student confidence, and build student ownership of their own learning. Learning targets can be used to develop routines that teach students to self-assess and reflect on their progress towards accessible learning goals. Using supporting and long term learning targets can demonstrate to students how learning targets fit within a broader framework of ideas. Scaffolding and assessing character learning targets can improve classroom cultures and develop students’ 21st century skills.

Preparation Steps

Develop Year at a Glance
Prioritize standards – high to low
Write learning targets that are standards-based, specific, student-friendly, assessable, and reasonable
Collaborate with staff to develop school-wide behavior expectations
Write character learning targets that go with school-wide expectations

Early Implementation Steps

Develop routine of discussing learning targets near the start of class with students
Develop routines that have students reflect on their Knows & Need-to-Knows that relate to specific learning targets
Use routines that involve checks for understanding and reflection debriefs

Advanced Implementation Steps

Incorporate long term and supporting learning targets
Find powerful moments to reveal learning targets and reserve learning target discussions for these times
Engage students in creating or revising learning targets
Analyze rigor of learning targets into knowledge, skill and reasoning targets and use these to select correct activities and assessments
Scaffold and assess academic AND character learning targets

March 15, 2016May 10, 2016

18: Lesson Plan Model for Cognitive Engagement

Garner, Betty K. Getting “got It!”: Helping Struggling Students Learn How to Learn. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2007. Print

Lesson Plan Model for Cognitive Engagement:

Explore: Students notice and gather sensory input.
Describe: Students make connections with prior knowledge
Explain: Teacher clarifies and builds on student associations, introduces new concepts and asks students what sense they are making of it all
Demonstrate: Students analyze and integrate information to demonstrate understanding by applying it
Evaluate: Students and teacher reflect on and evaluate effectiveness of lesson, how to improve it, and what questions come to mind as a result of learning experiences

For more scaffolding ideas related to specific cognitive structures, see:

This lesson plan model can be used to design scaffolding activities that practice using cognitive structures to develop deep understanding of content. This model may support EL learners because it connects new knowledge to immediate experiences and prior knowledge.

Preparation Steps

Analyze skills embedded in standards and in project context
Identify which skills could benefit from this lesson plan model
Design learning experiences that align to targeted standards and work well with lesson plan model
Create and gather resources related to lesson plan
Identify cognitive structures that relate to targeted standards: See 16: Cognitive structures part 1 of 2 and 17: Cognitive structures part 2 of 2.
Use targeted cognitive structures to plan specific open-ended questions that encourage students to practice targeted cognitive structures
Design formative assessments that can be used to determine how students are learning new content

Early Implementation Steps

Implement lesson plans based on lesson plan model
Use formative assessment results to give students timely feedback and to make adjustments to lesson plan

Advanced Implementation Steps

Design lesson plans that simultaneously address targeted standards, related cognitive structures, and related project products
Integrate lesson plan model with skills embedded in 6 facets of understanding
Teach students cognitive structures and to be aware of when they are using them to learn new content

March 15, 2016May 10, 2016

17: Cognitive Structures Part 2 of 2

Garner, Betty K. Getting to “got It!”: Helping Struggling Students Learn How to Learn. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2007. Print.

This is a continuation of the discussion in 16: Cognitive structures part 1 of 2.

Spatial orientation: cognitive structure that helps people identify and compare objects and places and relate them to each other:

4 types of space:
1. material space (real, 3D),
2. representational space (abstract, 2D),
3. abstract space (uses mental images to transcend real spatial relationships),
4. virtual space (uses social or personal norms to establish relationships)
All coding systems (music, writing, free body diagrams) rely on representational spatial thinking
Students who struggle with this cognitive structure have trouble with relationship, spatial, virtual and abstract relationships
Building Spatial Orientation Strategies:
- Ask students: What do you notice? How would it look different from a different point of view?
- Students describe objects relative to other objects
- Students recognize when they need spatial orientations to complete tasks
- Give directions in terms of spatial relationships
- Students provide verbal instructions to another student to build a structure with blocks
- Students draw what they see
- Students draw floor plans of familiar spaces
- Students plan how they move from one location to another
- Student manipulate and represent information using various representations
- Students connect virtual space in terms of personal space, family relationships, etc.
- Students use knowledge of physical location to organize physical world
- Play tic tac toe while students use verbal directions to describe moves.
- Use tic tac toe grid to have students predict position of dot after several rotations
- Students use globe, maps, GPS to locate objects
- Students measure distances using different units
- Students draw things from different points of view

Temporal orientation: cognitive structure of processing information by comparing how things occur in time

3 categories: traits (physical ex: on clocks, timers, circadian, psychological perceptions), movement (linear, sequential, circular, simultaneous), type (chronology, change, duration)
Essential for record keeping, planning, and organizing tasks
Enhances learning of all subjects
Helps students delay gratification and moderate impulses
Building Temporal Orientation Strategies:
- Students recognize time pieces and how they work
- Students experiment with different ways of measuring time
- Students notice the relationship between the clock and the calendar
- Students practice using time to schedule tasks and activities
- Model how to use time management to complete tasks more efficiently and with less stress
- Students notice how verbs express tense
- Students notice how events are related in time
- Student practice noticing time durations – e.g. trip planning, scheduling
- Students notice sequences, series, and ordered relationships
- Students notice recurring cycles – e.g. seasons, water cycle, etc
- Student use timelines to recognize events occur at same and different times

Understanding the cognitive structure that underly skills and knowledge in standards can help teachers develop scaffolding for students that struggle (or not). Recognizing underlying cognitive structures can help teacher identify foundational skills related to standards. Developing these foundational skills may make it easier for students to learn related skills.

Preparation Steps

Analyze NOUNS, VERBS, and CONTEXTS within targeted standards.
Identify what cognitive structures are needed to efficiently learn knowledge and skills in targeted standards.
Pre-assess students to see if they have the cognitive structures needed to learn new knowledge efficiently
Brainstorm strategies teacher can use to develop cognitive structures related to targeted standards

Early Implementation Steps

Use pre-assessment results to determine number and degree of activities needed to develop cognitive structures
Implement activities with elements aimed at developing targeted standards skills and related cognitive structures

Advanced Implementation Steps

Teach students cognitive structures and encourage them to recognize then they are using them to process information
Encourage students to deliberately practice specific cognitive structures in order to learn things more efficiently

March 15, 2016May 10, 2016

16: Cognitive Structures Part 1 of 2

Garner, Betty K. Getting to “got It!”: Helping Struggling Students Learn How to Learn. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2007. Print

Cognitive Structures:

Basic mental processes people use to make sense of information
3 categories: comparative, logical, and logical representation
Used to make connections, find relationships & patterns, formulate rules, and abstract generalizable rules. These are used to make meaning of new information
Strategies for Developing Cognitive Structures:
- Build caring relationships with your students
- Encourage students to be reflectively aware
- Encourage students to use their imaginations to visualize
- Encourage use of cognitive structures by: making connections with prior knowledge, explaining problem solving processes and why they make sense, look for patterns that connect information, formulate rules to process information automatically & quickly, abstract generalizable principles to transfer ideas from one context to another
- Determine what cognitive structures are needed to master standards and scaffold these as foundational skills
- Encourage students to ask questions and wonder
- Instead of telling, use open ended prompts

Recognition: cognitive structure that allows one to match or fit 2 or more pieces of information; can recognize items without fully knowing them (like being able to answer multiple choice questions without having deep understanding of content)

when kids say they know something, they usually mean that they recognize it
recognizing the familiar builds confidence
recognizing patterns enables people to process information more quickly
Recognition Building Strategies
- Students consciously aware of observations related to the 5 senses
- Students compare new information to information they already know
- Students reflect upon and visualize information. Visualizing information allows brain to manipulate information even when original stimuli is not near.
- Students use recognition of what’s familiar to build confidence
- Play games that let students recognize and match familiar words: matching games, sound recognition games, scavenger hunts, bingos, puzzles

Memorization: cognitive structure for storing and recalling information It’s not like a file cabinet (passive storage), more like digestion (active storage).

Levels of memorization: imitation (without transfer) and remembering (with transfer)
Builds confidence and makes learning easier
Memorization Building Strategies:
- Students memorize with understanding – interact with information by asking questions and finding personal meaning
- Play memory games with information that is good to memorize
- Explain relevance of specific information
- Students notice things and build connections with prior knowledge & experiences
- Students are reflectively aware of what senses tell them
- Students visualize information they want to remember – pictures are easier to remember than words
- Students attach feelings to what they want to memorize
- Provides hands-on, multi-sensory learning experiences
- Teach association strategies such as: mnemonics, rhymes, concept mapping, outlining, sequencing, cartooning, and contextual referencing
- Students systematically rehearse and practice using what they remember
- Students teach others

Constancy of Constants: cognitive structure that helps one understand which characteristics of things change and which stay the same

Lack of this skill can make learning confusing and make it difficult to abstract and transfer information
This skill is needed to learn big ideas in math, science, ELA, and social studies
Constancy of Constants Building Strategies:
- Constancy of volume: Ask students if volume changes if a piece of clay is shaped like a ball or a snake and then explain their reasoning
- Constancy of amount: Ask students if moldable object (e.g. a candy bar) changes amount when it changes shape and explain their reasoning
- Constancy of length: Ask students to compare sticks of same length at different orientations and explain their comparisons of the objects
- Constancy of weight: Weigh 2 pieces of clay. Change the shape of one piece and ask students to explain whether or not they think the 2 pieces of clay still weigh the same.
- Constancy of counts: Ask students to count blocks. Rearrange blocks into different configurations and ask students to explain whether or not they think the counts changed and why.
- Constancy of area: Use 2 equal sheets of paper. Fold paper in different ways and ask students to compare their areas and why.
- Constancy of constancy: Ask students when constants are important. Ask how constants relate to the concepts in the current lesson.
- Give students opportunities to identify quantities that change and stay constant (can occur in labs)

Classification: cognitive structure that makes meaning of information by identifying relationships between pieces of information

Help students make meaning and formulate / remember relationships and rules
Students who struggle to remember skills that appear repetitively in the curriculum may have lacked opportunities to perform classifying tasks (e.g. matching socks)
Order in thinking makes thinking faster and more efficient
Classification Building Strategies:
- Ask students: What do you notice? How are things alike and different?
- Students classify collections of items
- Students perform practice classification tasks – e.g. putting away lab equipment
- Students recognize classification systems in everyday life – e.g. phone numbers, addresses, etc.
- Model classification and explain how classifying things makes thinking more efficient
- Make students more conscious of how they process information
- Play games that involve classification: SET, Connect 4, Memory, etc.
- Talk about and draw family trees and concept maps
- Practice using time and space as criteria for classifying things
- Ask student to classify things at home and at school

To see other cognitive structures and related structures, see 17: Cognitive Structures Part 2 of 2.

Preparation Steps

Analyze NOUNS, VERBS, and CONTEXTS within targeted standards.
Identify what cognitive structures are needed to efficiently learn knowledge and skills in targeted standards.
Pre-assess students to see if they have the cognitive structures needed to learn new knowledge efficiently
Brainstorm strategies teacher can use to develop cognitive structures related to targeted standards

Early Implementation Steps

Use pre-assessment results to determine number and degree of activities needed to develop cognitive structures
Implement activities with elements aimed at developing targeted standards skills and related cognitive structures

Advanced Implementation Steps

Teach students cognitive structures and encourage them to recognize then they are using them to process information
Encourage students to deliberately practice specific cognitive structures in order to learn things more efficiently

March 15, 2016May 10, 2016

15: Understanding by Design Project Planning Form

Wiggins, Grant P., and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998. Print.

The following project planning form was inspired by the backwards design process in Understanding by Design:
- Blank project planning form: link
- Sample completed planning form: ink

Section 1: Standards: This section is used to highlight key concepts and verbs in standards.
- Underline nouns and bold verbs in the standards

Section 2: Essential Questions: This section is used to brainstorm authentic project contexts that relate to standards.
- WHAT concepts will student learn? See NOUNS in standards.
- HOW will students interact with concepts? See VERBS in standards.
- WHO will do the WHAT and WHO? Brainstorm list of experts who have a reason to do the NOUNS and VERBS.
- WHERE will the pros perform the skills and use the knowledge? Brainstorm contexts where experts will apply NOUNS and VERBS in standards.
- WHEN will the pros perform the skills and use the knowledge? Brainstorm instances and events that cause experts to apply NOUNS and VERBS in standards.
- WHY will the pros perform the skills and use the knowledge? Brainstorm lists of probable causes for pros call to action to apply NOUNS and VERBS in standards.

Section 3: Problem Statement: Select a specific project context by choosing from the lists above to populate a sentence stem for a problem statement that includes the WHAT, HOW, WHO, WHERE, WHEN, and WHY

Section 4: 21st Century Skills & Products: Brainstorm project projects that align to standards and are expressions of 21st century skills: critical thinking, written communication, oral communication, agency, and collaboration.

Section 5: Rubric: Design a three-level rubric. Level 1 has Foundational skills, prerequisite skills needed to achieve mastery in targeted standards. Level 2 has Mastery skills, skills embedded in the standards as written. Level 3 has Transfer skills, skills that transfer knowledge and skills in standards to authentic contexts. The WHAT & HOW responses to Section 2 make-up part of the Mastery rubric criteria. The WHO, WHEN, WHY, & WHERE responses to Section 2 can inspire the Transfer rubric criteria.

Section 6: Assessments: List Foundational, Mastery, and Transfer level skills. Brainstorm assessments that will produce evidence of student mastery of each of the skills.

Section 7: Scaffolding: List Foundational, Mastery, and Transfer level skills. Brainstorm learning tasks that will help students achieve mastery of each of the skills.

The project planning form can used to make sure design of project is based on an analysis of standards and based on contexts (professionals, settings, events) that plausibly relate to the standards. This form helps teachers design products that are expressions of 21st century skills. It uses essential questions to facilitate brainstorming that can help one write the Proficient section and the harder-to-write Advanced section of the project rubric. Breaking skills into Foundation, Mastery, and Transfers levels helps teachers develop sequences of learning tasks and assessments that build from low to high rigor skills.

Preparation Steps

Study sample project planning form to learn how to complete project planning form
Use blank project planning form to analyze standards, brainstorm project contexts, project products, assessments and scaffolding
Create scaffolding and assessment resources
Create a project calendar that contains time slots for all scaffolding and assessments

Early Implementation Steps

Implement scaffolding and formative assessments
Use formative assessment results to evaluate success of learning tasks and to make adjustments as needed
Use formative assessments results to give timely feedback to students that they can use to improve their understanding and products

Advanced Implementation Steps

Integrate elements of Human-Centered design into design of project. See HCD resources below.
Integrate 6 facets of understanding into design of project. See 14: Six Facets of Understanding.

March 15, 2016May 10, 2016

14: Six Facets of Understanding

Chapter 4 in Wiggins, Grant P., and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998. Print.

Explanation:
- Can describe apt theories and illustrations that provide knowledgeable accounts of events, actions, and ideas
- How does this work? To what is this connected? What does this imply? How did this happen?
Interpretation:
- Can offer up narratives and translations that provide meaning
- What does it mean? Why does it matter? What does it illustrate? Why does this make sense? How does this relate to me?
Application:
- Ability to use knowledge in varied and novel contexts
- How and where can I use this skill, process or idea? How should my thinking be modified to meet the constraints of the situation?
Perspective:
- Critical, insightful and multiple points of view
- From whose point of view? What is assumed? What is justified or warranted? is there adequate evidence? Is it reasonable? What are the strengths and weaknesses of an idea? What are the limitation of an idea? Is idea plausible?
Empathy:
- Getting inside another’s feelings and worldview
- How does it seem to you? What do they see that I don’t? What do I need to experience if I am to understand? What was the author feeling and trying to make me feel?
Self knowledge:
- knowing what one knows and doesn’t know
- knowing how one’s thought patterns inform and also limit/prejudice understanding
- How does who I am shape my views? What are the limits of my understanding? What are my blind spots? What am I prone to misunderstand because of my habits and prejudices?

The 6 facets of understanding can be used to investigate what understanding specific learning goals really means. Knowing what facets of understanding apply to specific learning goals can help one design the right questions, appropriate assessments and learning tasks to scaffold and assess these goals. The 6 facets can be used to evaluate the end products of projects. Knowing what facets are required to develop good products can help one plan the appropriate content and 21st century scaffolding and assessments.

The 6 facets can also be used to create rich project contexts and scaffolding sequences that get students to understand learning goals at many levels. These can also be used to get more ideas for the Advanced section of project rubrics. The Proficient section could cover the standard as written. The Advanced section could require the student to demonstrate concepts using 1 or more of the 6 facets listed above.

PREPARATION STEPS

Analyze targeted standards – analyze nouns, verbs, and contexts in the standards
Determine which of the 6 facets best align / relate to targeted standards
Brainstorm what assessments and learning tasks go with the standards interpreted as written and interpreted through the lenses of the 6 facets that make the most sense
Design assessments and learning tasks that are aligned to standards and have high rigor level (involve several facets of understanding)

EARLY IMPLEMENTATION STEPS

Implement learning tasks and assessments that are aligned to standards and employ several facets of understanding
Use assessments to give students feedback and make adjustments as needed
Gather evidence of student mastery of learning goals throughout the project

ADVANCED INTERPRETATION STEPS

Analyze evidence of student mastery of learning. Divide into 3 piles – low, medium, high. Note common characteristics within each pile and see if these relate to supports / instructions in learning tasks. Use this analysis to improve strategies in future projects.
Use a project planning form inspired by Understanding by Design to brainstorm contexts that naturally create opportunities for facets of understanding. See 15 – Understanding by Design Project Planning Form