Understanding

Chelsea BakerUNDERSTANDING

Understanding is…The ability to infer hidden meanings.The ability to read between the lines.The ability to apply concepts to new and different situations and concepts.

Understandings differ from knowledgeKnowledge is specific to facts, information, and skills.

Understandings are more abstract and require a deeper level of knowledge.

WHAT IS UNDERSTANDING

Understandings are…ConceptualTransferableComprehensiveAbstractDeveloped by uncovering and doing

Understandings are not…Recalling informationWritten facts Immediately understood

WHAT ARE UNDERSTANDINGS

Backwards design is an approach to understanding.

Allows us to begin planning by thinking about the life long understandings we want students to take away.

BACKWARDS DESIGN

STAGE 1

Common Core State standards

Literacy, science, social studies, 21st century skills Starting point for each lesson What lesson is formed around

NCSSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies Specific to Social studies Introduces themes within social studies

ESTABLISHED GOALS - STANDARDS

NCSSS Themes Culture Time, continuity, and change People, places, and environments Individual development and identity Individuals, groups, and institutions Power, authority, and governance Production, distribution, and consumption Science, technology, and society Global connections Civic ideals and practices

ESTABLISHED GOALS - STANDARDS

Transfer goals build off of the big ideas within a unit and apply them to transferable tasks.

Blooms taxonomy poses many meaningful tasks to help guide students in building understandings.

TRANSFER GOALS

Creating Students will be able to create a brochure about eating healthy.

Evaluating Students will be able to assess their peers presentation in a

respectful manner.Analyze

Students will be able to compare and contrast healthy and unhealthy foods.

Apply Students will be able to classify animate and inanimate

objects.Remember

Students will be able to describe the characters in a story using key details.

Understand Students will be able to explain the stages of mitosis.

TRANSFER GOALS - BLOOMS TAXONOMYEXAMPLES

BLOOMS TAXONOMY VERBS

Ineffective transfer goalsStudents will be able to…

Recall what culture is. Define culture.

TRANSFER GOALS – NON EXAMPLES

Understandings This section is where we state the concepts that students

will understand by the end of the lesson. The understandings are based off of the activities that

students complete during the lesson. This section allows us to evaluate the tasks that we are

having students perform and how effective they will be for student understanding.

The understandings should be narrowed down to specific concepts within the standards.

Examples: In a lesson on culture we would want students to understand:

Culture is the behaviors, beliefs, traditions, and ways of living in a specific group of people.

Similarities and differences between cultures.

Non Examples: What culture is

MEANING MAKING

Essential Questions Essential questions are thick and descriptive questions. They help to guide students thinking towards the important

concepts in the lesson. Essential questions get students thinking about the

concepts in ways that they may not have already been thinking.

Examples: How are groups of people alike and different? How does culture link a group of people?

Non Examples: What is culture? Why is culture important?

MEANING MAKING

Knowledge The knowledge section pertains to the information that

students will gain during the lesson. It can also pertain to the knowledge that students will

already have.

Examples: Students will know…

Important people who impacted the U.S. throughout history. How to define culture and bias.

ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL

Skills The skills sections is where you would put the skills that

students will need to have in order to complete the tasks. If students do not already have these skills then you will

need to help the students gain these skills. The skills section can also be where you would put the skills

that students will learn within in the lesson.Examples:

Students will be skilled at… Collecting information from various forms of media. Using maps and globes to find locations of countries.

ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL

Knowledge and skill At first I thought that the knowledge and skill sections were

only for the knowledge and skills that students will gain from the lesson. However I realized that this can also be a place to put knowledge and skills students will need in order to participate and engage in the lesson.

Essential questions When I first began working with the essential questions I

thought that they were just questions that you would ask during the lesson. However, I learned that these questions are actually there to help assist students in their thinking process. They help students to build meaningful understandings and allow them to keep considering the concepts even after the lesson is over.

PERSONAL MISCONCEPTIONS

Standards My biggest struggle with building a lesson is pairing

standards. The standards are the most important pieces in building a meaningful lesson. There were many times that I thought standards would pair well together until I began working with those standards. It was then that I would realize that the concepts within the standards were to broad and needed to be narrowed down.

PERSONAL MISCONCEPTIONS

Adler, S. A. (2010). National curriculum standards for social studies: a framework for teaching, learning and assessment. Silver Spring, Md: National Council for the Social Studies.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005).Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition  (2nd ed.). Alexandria: ASCD.

RESOURCES