If great teaching is an art, do we not need the best tools to paint the best paintings?
If great teaching is a sport, would the best equipment be essential to form the ideal athlete?
Ponder these momentarily. For as the school year has begun, these are questions we must consider.
Unfortunately, many components of education have become a business- unit plans, testing, and even schools themselves. It is essential that we, as educators, discern between new resources that are useful and those that are useless.
And don't get me wrong- there are many new resources that are incredible, especially those created by fellow instructors. I have found many ideas on www.teacherspayteachers.com (Lovin' Lit especially), online learning communities, non for profit companies (Facing History and Ourselves), blogs, and most importantly, articles highlighting research-based best practices.
But for the myriad of options, why are so many not based in Understanding by Design (UbD)? This seems like common sense, but is often not the case.
When I was in college, backwards design was presented as a way to teach, not the way. Times have changed. It is accepted in urban public schools that using backwards design is paramount. It is an established theory as sound as gravity; no more should teachers go to their classrooms each morning asking themselves what they should be doing that day, but instead go in ready for planning that embeds their Essential Questions, Enduring Understandings, is tied to the appropriate standards, and is linked to the upcoming summative and formative assessments.
This idea has been met with resistance from many, mainly because it is a lot of work. But that perspective changes when we begin to realize how much unnecessary work is created by postponing our lesson plans and scrambling to create assessments and activities. Yes, creating and executing a great UbD unit takes work; but that work pays off. We see it in how students grow, how much they learn, and the assessments that we give. (To clarify- assessments does not necessarily mean standardized tests. Yes, students take these, but the assessments you create for your students can be a test, project, argumentative writing essay, Socratic circle, collage, etc.)
If all of this is true, why then do we have curriculum being developed today that does not utilize backwards design effectively, and sometimes does not use it at all?
I recently was considering a new curriculum for my classroom. It was presented as cutting edge, tied to new standards, and revolutionary in the way we teach. I was instantly curious.
I spoke with some representatives and curriculum coordinators from the company and received some introductory materials. After listening to how great the unit was, I noticed that were was not a UbD template. I asked where the unit planning was, and I was presented with a scope and sequence. I cannot emphasize this enough- scope and sequence is NOT UbD. Scope and sequence, if done effectively, could be Stage 3 of UbD, but that is it. It is stale and ineffective. Scripted lessons and guides to what we should teach each day do not employ backwards design. It was clear that there were no Essential Questions or Enduring Understandings, so I asked about formative and summative assessments. Multiple people gave me different responses, and none of them were clear. What did become obvious was that there weren't any.
Instantly I realized that the curriculum was not contemporary, despite being advertised as embedded with modern standards. Paul Bambrick-Santoyo asserted in Driven by Data that standards are meaningless until you define how they will be assessed. (I should note that I disagree with many of his implications and certain aspects of this book, but this point is absolutely correct.) In fact, with changing standards but old curricula, many teachers have been instructed to utilize old textbooks and materials but employ new standards into their lessons and planning. Is this possible? Yes- but it takes a great deal of planning and intense work with backwards mapping.
Does that mean that Bambrick-Santoyo's claim holds true in every grade and subject? Absolutely. As teachers, we define how rigorous our curriculum and assessments are. We also see how many schools are projected to have higher test scores and better teaching, when in fact, the teaching has become watered down. It has become marketing. In a city where schools are closed and opened in the blink of an eye, new propaganda is released on a constant basis to taut the merits of a school. As the results are spun and often leaving out crucial information, it becomes clear that something has been hidden. And regardless of what data is being kept quiet, we know that great teaching begins with great planning. And if that planning is not rooted in backwards design, we should not be paying money for new curricula, no matter what standards are embedded in them.
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| UbD template |
If all of this is true, why then do we have curriculum being developed today that does not utilize backwards design effectively, and sometimes does not use it at all?
I recently was considering a new curriculum for my classroom. It was presented as cutting edge, tied to new standards, and revolutionary in the way we teach. I was instantly curious.
I spoke with some representatives and curriculum coordinators from the company and received some introductory materials. After listening to how great the unit was, I noticed that were was not a UbD template. I asked where the unit planning was, and I was presented with a scope and sequence. I cannot emphasize this enough- scope and sequence is NOT UbD. Scope and sequence, if done effectively, could be Stage 3 of UbD, but that is it. It is stale and ineffective. Scripted lessons and guides to what we should teach each day do not employ backwards design. It was clear that there were no Essential Questions or Enduring Understandings, so I asked about formative and summative assessments. Multiple people gave me different responses, and none of them were clear. What did become obvious was that there weren't any.
Instantly I realized that the curriculum was not contemporary, despite being advertised as embedded with modern standards. Paul Bambrick-Santoyo asserted in Driven by Data that standards are meaningless until you define how they will be assessed. (I should note that I disagree with many of his implications and certain aspects of this book, but this point is absolutely correct.) In fact, with changing standards but old curricula, many teachers have been instructed to utilize old textbooks and materials but employ new standards into their lessons and planning. Is this possible? Yes- but it takes a great deal of planning and intense work with backwards mapping.
Does that mean that Bambrick-Santoyo's claim holds true in every grade and subject? Absolutely. As teachers, we define how rigorous our curriculum and assessments are. We also see how many schools are projected to have higher test scores and better teaching, when in fact, the teaching has become watered down. It has become marketing. In a city where schools are closed and opened in the blink of an eye, new propaganda is released on a constant basis to taut the merits of a school. As the results are spun and often leaving out crucial information, it becomes clear that something has been hidden. And regardless of what data is being kept quiet, we know that great teaching begins with great planning. And if that planning is not rooted in backwards design, we should not be paying money for new curricula, no matter what standards are embedded in them.
