The document discusses the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework for curriculum planning. It emphasizes starting with the desired results or outcomes, such as enduring understandings and essential questions, rather than activities or texts. This "backward design" approach focuses on ensuring students understand key concepts rather than just covering content. The document provides examples of enduring understandings and essential questions and explains how to use them. It also discusses curriculum mapping and using UbD to design units, assessments, and instruction to lead students to deep understanding.

3. “If students have not been told
where they are going, it is
unlikely that they will arrive.”
– Shirley Clark

4. The Plan
Backwards Design planning.
Enduring Understandings
Essential Questions /
Inquiry
Theme vs Genre Based
Summative Assessment
Curriculum Mapping

6. Understanding by
Design (UbD)
A framework for
designing curriculum
units, performance
assessments, and
instruction that lead
your students to deep
understanding of the
content you teach.
Wiggins and McTighe (2005)

7. Understanding by Design
(UbD):
“The Shift”
Instead of :
• What book or texts will we
read?
•What activities and
assignments will we do?
• What will we discuss?

8. Understanding by Design
“The Shift”
The questions become:
• What should they walk out
the door able to understand,
regardless of what activities or
texts we use?
• What is the evidence of such
ability?
• What texts, activities and
methods will best enable such
a result?
Wiggins and McTighe (2005)

9. Deliberate use of Backward
Design
(UBD) for planning results in more clearly
defined goals, more appropriate assessments
and more purposeful teaching.
Stages to Consider
1.Identify desired results.
2.Determine acceptable
evidence.
3.Plan learning experiences
and instruction.

10. Characteristics of Good Design
2
1. Clear goals explicit performance
requirements.
2. Many models and modeling provided.
3. A genuine challenge/problem frames work
that stretches you - real, meaningful work,
with meaningful
purpose/audience/situation.
4. Transparency - clarity about the big picture
and how current work relates to it.
5. A good mix of group/solo work and
collaboration.

11. Take a minute or
two… What
aspects of
Backwards Design
exists in your
current classroom
practice?

13. Asking Questions
What are the benefits of
getting students to ask
their own questions in
your classes?
How have you encouraged
/ taught students to ask
their own questions?
What have you noticed?

14. Planning an Inquiry Unit
Step 1: Essential Question
Step 2: Conceptual and
Procedural Knowledge
Step 3: Culminating Project
Step 4: Scaffolding Activities
Step 5: Assessment
(Wilhelm, Wilhelm and Boas, 2009)

15. Enduring Understandings are the “big
ideas” of the curriculum. They are
more than goals for a unit or grade;
they are the rationale for engaging in
discipline.

16. Enduring Understandings:
From ELA Curriculum
- A good thinker uses interpretations,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation to
deepen and enhance understanding.
- Meaning making is a constructive and
creative process; the quest for meaning is
never complete.
- We need to reflect on, monitor, and
regulate our own learning in order to
improve.

17. Essential Questions
“The best questions serve not only to
promote understanding of the content...
they also spark connections and promote
transfer of ideas.”
- Wiggins and McTighe

18. An Essential Question will be
successful if it meets two criteria:
If it is phrased in a way to be
interesting or compelling to
students.
If it gets after enduring
understandings from the
discipline(s) being studied.

19. Essential Questions increase the
level of critical thinking by
- Showing students there are
multiple perspectives to an
issue.
- Content becomes an issue to be
discussed rather than
memorized.

20. “Essential questions provide for richer
teaching and lead to greater
understanding because they point to a
relationship between two or more things,
as opposed to a topic that is one –
dimensional.”
- Damien Cooper

21. When we organize our curriculum conceptually
around enduring understandings and/or
inquiry questions, we create a context for
learning about ideas, concepts, and
interpretive literacy processes students need
to become accomplished readers, writers, and
thinkers.

22. What themes do
you already
introduce your
students to in your
English classes?

23. • Some themes: •
• Citizenship – •
digital and
•
physical
•
• Community
• What does it •
mean to love?
• Exclusion
• Predjudice
•
• Poverty
•
• Storytelling
• Joy of Learning •
• Joy of language
Progressing
•
Regressing
•
Fear
Define yourself:
who am I?
Fiction and
•
non-fiction
•
connection
•
Integrity
The nature of •
evil
•
Parent child
paradox
The American
dream
Every action
has an equal
and opposite
reaction
Ethics
Resiliency
Social justice
Footprint
The meaning of
life

24. What essential questions could you ask
students to help them begin to think
about or engage in each of these themes?

25. What elements of the story are revealing of life?
How has conflict shaped my identity?
What would happen if everybody cared?
How can a moment of truth impact or change your life?
What can happen when one is in denial of the truth?
How do the choices we make impact others?
To what extent are friendships related to one’s identity?
Are people inherently judgemental?
Can a person be hateful and caring all at the same time?
Where do everyday people find the courage to do extraordinary
things?
How do people overcome suffering?
Is fear the same around the world and through time? Is it cultural, age,
or gender specific?
What is the evidence of a successful life?
What is fair?
How do you progress in fear?
How do you know what you know?

29. Curriculum Mapping
Learning Intentions – PLOs
Big ideas / Enduring Understandings
Essential Questions
Concepts – Things to know
Skills / Strategies
Formative Assessments / Instructional Activities
Summative Assessment(s)
Resources

30. Curriculum Map
Unit of Study
Learning
Intentions –
PLOs
Big Ideas /
Enduring
Understandings
Essential ?s
Concepts
(What students
need to know)
Speaking and
Listening:
Writing and
Representing:
Reading and
Viewing:
Skills &
Strategies
Metacognition:
Formative
Assessments /
Instructional
Activities
Summative
Assessments
Resources
Adapted from Pulling Together: Integrating Inquiry, Assessment, and Instruction in Today's
English Classroom by Leyton Schnellert, Mehjabeen Datoo, Krista Ediger, Joanne Panas

34. Curriculum Map
Unit of Study
Learning
Intentions –
PLOs
Big Ideas /
Enduring
Understandings
Essential ?s
Concepts
(What students
need to know)
Speaking and
Listening:
Writing and
Representing:
Reading and
Viewing:
Skills &
Strategies
Metacognition:
Formative
Assessments /
Instructional
Activities
Summative
Assessments
Resources
Adapted from Pulling Together: Integrating Inquiry, Assessment, and Instruction in Today's
English Classroom by Leyton Schnellert, Mehjabeen Datoo, Krista Ediger, Joanne Panas

35. Something I can take from this session
today to support my current practice
is…

36. Something new I learned in this
session I can see working in my
practice is…

37. Contact Information
Jonathan Vervaet
Email: jonathanvervaet@gmail.com
Twitter: @jonathanvervaet
Blog: jonathanvervaet.wordpress.com