Understanding By Design

I know a lot of my peers mentioned the video we watched in 406 of Grant Wiggins’ explanation of “Understanding By Design.” So, I suppose we’ve had a brief introduction before this week’s reading assignment. But, as I began reading, I couldn’t help but remember his reference to soccer and how he spoke about refereeing a soccer game that lacked strategic thinking. He described the scenario as a lot of aimless running around. It wasn’t until the team was asked to self-assess that it made a difference in the way they played. They were asked, “What is working on the field? What is not working? What do we need to work on?”  By doing this, they were creating/embedding long-term goals into short-term plans. This is what we need to do as future teachers and advocates of UBD.

I believe that Understanding By Design is a hard concept for a lot of us to grasp. As far as I’m concerned, I was hardly ever taught in such a fashion. I proceeded from K-12 in the traditional (contentàactivityàtest) fashion. Mind you, there was always a huge emphasis on NECAP testing. So, when I read in Module A that, “in many schools teachers are expected to engage in test prep as a means of raising test scores (4),” it really hit home. I remember sitting in the cafeteria of my high school each morning during NECAP week being fed breakfast (this was in an attempt to increase test scores…it was really insane now that I think back on it). I find it so sad that schools are forcing teachers to teach to a test. Like the author noted, it’s not just about covering the content, but uncovering it. This is why I support the idea of Understanding by Design. I am for what it aims to do, which is focus on helping students come to an understanding of important ideas and transfer their learning to new situations.

I can’t really say I disagree with the idea of Understanding By Design, as I feel the pros heavily outweigh any cons. I especially liked and wanted to touch upon their discussion of Judy Willis’ validation of the principles and practices of UBD (in module A). I wanted to touch upon this because as a future science teacher, a lot of the content will be taught more effectively through hands-on experiences. Oddly enough, one of the points of validation for UBD was that, “Experiential learning that stimulates multiple senses in students, such as hands-on science activities, is not only the most engaging but also the most likely to be stored as long term memories (6).” I can really relate to this point! As a science major, I have taken numerous science classes (all of which were considerably difficult). I found that I learned most when I “did” something with the content. This is what I hope to do with my future students.

One of my most vivid science memories dates back to my freshman year of high school. We were in the lab creating our own DNA double helix on one of those big post-it notes. I remember matching the base pairs, color coding, and transcribing my DNA molecule into RNA. I absolutely loved this hands-on activity, and it was there that my foundation of complementary base pairing began. So, when it was re-introduced to it later in my life, I had a previous experience with the material. With that, I was able to further my understanding by doing more with the material. As a future science teacher, I think this is going to be very important, and although this particular lesson wasn’t based on backward design, I know it would work with one.

This is what it would look like, with a legend and a color coded sequence!