The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units

The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units is written by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe and is published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). It is written for educators who design lessons and learning units for grades K-16 using the backward design approach. This book is a guide for creating those units. It provides downloadable templates for most subject areas, that will help walk the reader through each stage of the backward design approach to curriculum planning. Understanding by Design focuses on the "big ideas", important ideas and the ability to transfer that learning.Briefly, backward design, and the templates included in this book, follows 3 stages of planning. The first stage is to identify the desired result for learners. The second stage is to make a determination of what evidence is necessary to indicate student understanding has taken place. The third stage is to plan the learning activities and instructions that will align with and lead to the identified desired result, from stage one.The book is broken down into modules. As indicated by the authors, if you are familiar with Understanding by Design (UbD) and the basic ideas then skim the first Module. If you are not familiar or have not read Wiggins and McTighe's previous books on UbD then you will want to spend some time with the first Module to ensure your understanding of the concepts and big ideas. Those who have read the other books might find the guide a nice companion to the other books. It is not necessary to read the others first, but it would help with a deeper understanding of the concepts particularly if you are not a classroom teacher or are a pre-service teacher.The remaining seven modules each assist the reader in building and understanding the UbD approach to planning and thinking. The final Module H addresses Learning for Understanding. This module addresses stage 3 and the desired results identified in stage 1 - "to help students acquire targeted knowledge and skills, make meaning of big ideas, and effectively transfer their learning in the future". I found this module particularly interesting as we examine what we want learners to understand and transfer. I agree with the authors when they state that many students have come to expect that all learning is acquisition and recall, based on life experiences. Instruction for understanding builds on the learner's understanding of the content by challenging the learner to understand at a deeper level rather than adding more content.The book provides a path and guide for curriculum improvement and student understanding. It is not meant to be a daily planner but rather to approach the backward design by units of instruction where understanding and transferable learning are the focus.This would be a great book for educators to have as a resource. I found the book very interesting. Thinking about the end result first just makes sense to me. It's much like planning a trip. I know where I want to land now how am I going to get there and what are the steps to making that happen so that when the journey begins all the pieces are in place and the fun begins!

This is a useful text for planning lessons or units that follows up the UbD text written by the same authors. It is not a book about philosophy or learning theories. It's only about what principles and questions teachers should take into account when planning. There is no rigid following of a template or guidelines. What are the principles espoused by W & M? That lesson planning should be geared toward "understanding" rather than rote memory, and that it should begin with desired results, then move to assessment techniques, and finally, to the activities. This process is called "backward design." If students "understand," then they may be able to transfer the acquired knowledge to solve problems and make decisions, making learning more meaningful. The authors also discuss the four learning goals - transfer, meaning, knowledge, and skills - and the three stages of learning - acquisition, meaning-making, and transfer. These latter three did not appear on the original UbD.Although the authors discuss many of the ideas covered in the early UbD text, the templates, the dialogues, and the guiding questions make this text an excellent complement to that first text. This is not to mention that this is adaptable to the recently established Common Core Standards. The dialogues were a great way of showing significant differences between mere coverage of content, and meaningful learning. This latter concept is achieved by asking Why am I teaching this to my students? What do I expect students to do with the skill or content?This book is not anti-standards or anti-standardized exams. It is not a critique against any particular public policy although the authors have criticized the excessive number of standards, and policies that encourage teaching by the test (they did so in UbD).On the contrary, this book helps teachers enhance their lesson planning and meet goals established by standards and educational policies in a more effective way, without sacrificing learners' academic development.This is one of the most useful books on lesson planning that I've read so far. It's also an eye-opener as to what education should be about. It avoids getting into fruitless debates about what os the True philosophy or scientific theory about learning. Very practical. I recommend it to any teacher who wants to improve lesson planning in the classroom.

Great book for any teacher/future teacher

Although tedious (nature of the material), it is a great blend of old and new Wiggins and McTighe. I do like the realistic explanations throughout.

I purchased this book to help with desigining a masters course in curriculum, instruction and assessment. I have the first version of UbD. It is much more detailed. This edition is a great overview and does provide a new more relevent template of the UbD plan. There are also many resources for making connections. I highly recommend it for the teacher, principal, or college student who is looking for a process to make the connection of curriculum, instruction and assessment.

Arrived on time more than expected

All teachers should be required to follow Wiggins and McTighe's design structure of Understanding by Design. This guide helps in the implementation of the backwards design for unit planning.

Maybe a padded envelope would have protected the book

I had not bought a UBD book in many years and wanted to refresh my memory of the process. I found the guide very useful and there were a lot of great tools online as well.

Excellent resource for teachers in training and supporting experienced teachers as well.