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Discover how the integration of two of education's most powerful frameworks will help teachers impart essential knowledge and skills to the full spectrum of learners.
Explores how schools and districts can leverage the Understanding by Design model's principles and strategies to improve student achievement, staff performance, and organizational productivity.
What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.
"This volume features a set of hands-on modules containing worksheets, models, and self-assessments that are essential for building more polished and powerful units"--
More than 45 tools and activities that make it easier for professional development leaders to show teachers and administrators how to successfully implement and maintain differentiated instruction.
Are you ready to make changes in your Christian school? Moving Learning Forward in Christian Schools: A Practical Guide for a Mission-Focused Curriculum challenges those involved in Christian schools to consider changes to better prepare students to enter adulthood and impact the world. Readers will gain insights into: -How current brain research about how the brain learns can be put into practice in classrooms. -How Christian schools can be much more mission-focused than they currently are. -An excellent framework to shift Christian schools' instructional programs from skills and knowledge (textbook-based) curriculum to focusing on understanding and transfer with improved curriculum, instruction, and assessment. -A perfect platform for developing better integration of biblical concepts in all subject areas. -How the six Facets of Understanding from Understanding by Design provide a vehicle to intentionally include the development of personal characteristics that are Bible based and often related to the school's mission. -A wonderful guideline for helping Christian schools think systemically about changes needed and for developing a three-to-five-year strategic plan for improving the instructional program. This is your opportunity to consider concrete and practical ideas for school improvement!
In the current standards-based, accountability-driven world of education, it is difficult for educators to use differentiated instruction to cater to the individual learning needs of each student. This book explains differentiating instruction in a way that connects to current standards and provides examples of challenging best practice lessons.
What are "essential questions," and how do they differ from other kinds of questions? What's so great about them? Why should you design and use essential questions in your classroom? Essential questions (EQs) help target standards as you organize curriculum content into coherent units that yield focused and thoughtful learning. In the classroom, EQs are used to stimulate students' discussions and promote a deeper understanding of the content. Whether you are an Understanding by Design (UbD) devotee or are searching for ways to address standards—local or Common Core State Standards—in an engaging way, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins provide practical guidance on how to design, initiate, and embed inquiry-based teaching and learning in your classroom. Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of EQs in all K-12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. As an important element of their backward design approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment, the authors *Give a comprehensive explanation of why EQs are so important; *Explore seven defining characteristics of EQs; *Distinguish between topical and overarching questions and their uses; *Outline the rationale for using EQs as the focal point in creating units of study; and *Show how to create effective EQs, working from sources including standards, desired understandings, and student misconceptions. Using essential questions can be challenging—for both teachers and students—and this book provides guidance through practical and proven processes, as well as suggested "response strategies" to encourage student engagement. Finally, you will learn how to create a culture of inquiry so that all members of the educational community—students, teachers, and administrators—benefit from the increased rigor and deepened understanding that emerge when essential questions become a guiding force for learners of all ages.
Offers parents of special-needs children expert advice on how they can cope with the emotional and practical issues they face while trying to get their children the help they need, emphasizing the importance of developing an active partnership with schools and professionals to ensure their child's needs are met.
This book introduces version 2.0 of the UbD Template and allows you to download fillable electronic forms to help you more easily incorporate standards, advance your understanding of backward design, and improve student learning.
