planning
so, you know how i often write in my blog when i am supposed to be planning but instead i'm procrastinating because i don't quite know what to do with my students? i know i kind of vascillate between talking about planning on here, and talking about my students, i guess because those are the two most powerful things for me about teaching. the rest of it is just side dishes, and not the exciting ones, like cornbread, but the boring ones, like coleslaw. (i don't like coleslaw very much as it doesn't fit with my recent health food kick.)
so anyways, i have been engaged in a new planning process based on a book called Understanding By Design (UBD). it's like the key to my future has been unlocked. i am collaborating with several other teachers and it is just incredibly exciting for all of us. i wrote this reflection two weeks about, after our first UBD meeting, but i never posted it up here. it's a little bit cheesy but i do want to share it with you as it is basically changing my life, one little bit at a time! (so here is my reflection, from 2 weeks ago).
So I just completely got my mind blown. Sitting with Sara, Natalie, Greg and Chad at the TFA office, I had one of the most productive professional meetings I have ever experienced (in or outside of education). We attacked the first chapter of a book called Understanding By Design. It guides you through a process of backward planning (curriculum design) that starts with the end product and draws on that to identify enduring understandings, potential misunderstandings that students will have, essential questions, key knowledge and skills, and then you get to the learning experiences (activities to meet individual objectives). We didn’t make it to learning experiences, though—the first few pieces were very time and energy intensive.
To begin, we identified that the UBD process would be a helpful way to grapple with one of the more confusing standards, so we chose the 8th grade literary devices/style standard and moved forward with it. After beginning to talk, we agreed that one of our anticipated outcomes for the meeting would be to deepen our understanding of the standard.
During my own planning I have frequently noticed a tension in the process of breaking a standard down into objectives, which for me is a simplistic, 10-15 minute process. However, there is always that nagging feeling that I’m missing something. That something has felt out of reach and I didn’t know how to try to reach it, so I’ve never tried. The UBD process that we went through today gave me a tool for reaching the purpose, or intent, of a standard. It was the intent of the standard that I never reached during the rote process of breaking the standard down into objectives. Those standards writers must have meant something—but they don’t spell it out for us. Holt has one interpretation, the CSTs have another interpretation—but we agree that often those interpretations don’t provide our students with what they really need. Therefore, the UBD process is a systematic, analytical tool for us to create our own (powerful) meaning from a standard.
Another recurring point which I was drawn to because I relate to it is that we should be setting standards mastery as what we think the “hills kids” should be doing. We create the work sample that shows exemplary mastery of the standard without being constrained by thoughts of our students’ skill levels (which are often low). We begin to consider the skill levels only when we begin the process of getting our kids to exemplary. This way, we are attempting to hold our kids to the same high standards as their counterparts on the other side of the achievement gap.
As the meeting wrapped up people mentioned that they felt renewed, inspired, and invested in our work as educators. This is not the end—and I have to remember that I have only touched the surface of this process. I hope to look back on our meeting notes someday and think “Wow—I have come so far since the first time I tried to tackle the UBD planning model. Now it guides my instruction and better yet, it’s an inherent part of the way that I think about education and learning.”
I also can’t wait to begin sharing this with other people—both TFA and non-TFA colleagues. I wouldn’t throw the whole thing at them at once, but rather I will begin infusing it into my conversations about curriculum and assessment. I have grown in leaps and bounds during my first year of teaching, and I think the UBD process will accelerate my growth on through the end of the school year and into the future.
so anyways, i have been engaged in a new planning process based on a book called Understanding By Design (UBD). it's like the key to my future has been unlocked. i am collaborating with several other teachers and it is just incredibly exciting for all of us. i wrote this reflection two weeks about, after our first UBD meeting, but i never posted it up here. it's a little bit cheesy but i do want to share it with you as it is basically changing my life, one little bit at a time! (so here is my reflection, from 2 weeks ago).
So I just completely got my mind blown. Sitting with Sara, Natalie, Greg and Chad at the TFA office, I had one of the most productive professional meetings I have ever experienced (in or outside of education). We attacked the first chapter of a book called Understanding By Design. It guides you through a process of backward planning (curriculum design) that starts with the end product and draws on that to identify enduring understandings, potential misunderstandings that students will have, essential questions, key knowledge and skills, and then you get to the learning experiences (activities to meet individual objectives). We didn’t make it to learning experiences, though—the first few pieces were very time and energy intensive.
To begin, we identified that the UBD process would be a helpful way to grapple with one of the more confusing standards, so we chose the 8th grade literary devices/style standard and moved forward with it. After beginning to talk, we agreed that one of our anticipated outcomes for the meeting would be to deepen our understanding of the standard.
During my own planning I have frequently noticed a tension in the process of breaking a standard down into objectives, which for me is a simplistic, 10-15 minute process. However, there is always that nagging feeling that I’m missing something. That something has felt out of reach and I didn’t know how to try to reach it, so I’ve never tried. The UBD process that we went through today gave me a tool for reaching the purpose, or intent, of a standard. It was the intent of the standard that I never reached during the rote process of breaking the standard down into objectives. Those standards writers must have meant something—but they don’t spell it out for us. Holt has one interpretation, the CSTs have another interpretation—but we agree that often those interpretations don’t provide our students with what they really need. Therefore, the UBD process is a systematic, analytical tool for us to create our own (powerful) meaning from a standard.
Another recurring point which I was drawn to because I relate to it is that we should be setting standards mastery as what we think the “hills kids” should be doing. We create the work sample that shows exemplary mastery of the standard without being constrained by thoughts of our students’ skill levels (which are often low). We begin to consider the skill levels only when we begin the process of getting our kids to exemplary. This way, we are attempting to hold our kids to the same high standards as their counterparts on the other side of the achievement gap.
As the meeting wrapped up people mentioned that they felt renewed, inspired, and invested in our work as educators. This is not the end—and I have to remember that I have only touched the surface of this process. I hope to look back on our meeting notes someday and think “Wow—I have come so far since the first time I tried to tackle the UBD planning model. Now it guides my instruction and better yet, it’s an inherent part of the way that I think about education and learning.”
I also can’t wait to begin sharing this with other people—both TFA and non-TFA colleagues. I wouldn’t throw the whole thing at them at once, but rather I will begin infusing it into my conversations about curriculum and assessment. I have grown in leaps and bounds during my first year of teaching, and I think the UBD process will accelerate my growth on through the end of the school year and into the future.
posted by Allyson B. at
6:23 PM
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