UbDDI+B1+Chapter+7

UbD/DI Chapter 7 Abstract and Synthesis
By Jenn Chick

In this chapter, there is a review of creating essential understandings, using them effectively and tying it into how teachers frame the class as a whole. Understandings take effort from both the teacher and the students. The chapter clarifies that teachers are doing more than just throwing information at their students. They are on a quest to probe student minds, and imbed their thoughts with meaningful questions based on the material, give examples of the good and the bad, and overall, really make the student think. One way the book further explained this was by comparing the difference between covering a topic and uncovering the topic. When covering a topic you are skimming the surface and moving on; when uncovering the topic you are digging deep into the material and making it mean something. The chapter goes on to explain that the best way to uncover material is to present the material as a solution to a problem. This, of course, is where [|essential questions] come into play. According to the book, for many teachers it is here that assessing and teaching becomes unclear, and that the best way to prevent this is to present the understandings at the beginning of the unit, and see the growth by presenting it again at the end. Also mentioned in this chapter were the Six Facets of Understanding which allow a teacher to present different ways for students learning the same way. Finally, at the end, there is the piece that ties everything together; the WHERETO framework. WHERETOs are used to help create a series of lessons within a unit, not a unit or individual lessons. They are mainly used to help map out how to incorporate the Six Facets in with the essential questions, and to help teachers create ways to help different types of learners succeed in understanding the material.

As a class, there was a large mix of responses to this chapter. Some people didn’t seem to take much away from this chapter, as they thought it was repetitive from previous chapters about essential questions. Many, however, found there to be useful information in learning how to incorporate the essential questions in with the Six Facets. The WHERETO framework seemed to be something that many people were excited to use, because it was one step closer to making the individual lessons, although many people said that they probably wouldn’t fully understand it until they used it. Although it was pointed out that essential questions had already been reviewed, many people seemed to consider the importance of asking students [|meaningful questions] in general a good point in this chapter. In a way, the WHERETO format helps set up a way to have essential questions reach all learners, or, it allows the students to responsively teach, which was mentioned in the previous chapter. Almost everyone agreed that this chapter was important in one way or another, but for most people it was about making sure that depth was the main focus in the classroom, not just skimming the surface. For everyone, focusing on the students and making sure that everyone could understand and retain something from the material seemed to be the ultimate goal. Many people made it clear that they thought asking the essential questions more than once and having them open ended were the best way to prevent students from skimming the surface. It provides every student the opportunity to contribute and understand the main ideas. toc

Abby
Our goal should be to teach understanding and not just base knowledge. This chapter dealt with this idea of going in more depth and not just giving students a surface level knowledge of all subjects. One of the suggested ways of doing this was by using our essential questions. We should be asking students open-ended questions that cause them to think and reflect not simply regurgitate information. As mentioned in the earlier chapter it is not necessary to master all the rules to deeply think on a subject. These questions guide learning and discovery. This chapter also explained WHERETO. It talked about this idea of setting goals so that the students know where they are going, pulling them in with a hook that ties the content to real life and actively engages them, and equipping them with the material needed to learn. It also talked about rethinking or refining ones knowledge and how to evaluate student learning as well as addressed tailoring the lessons to different student needs and keeping it all organized. These are all very important things to remember when creating a lesson. I want to make sure that my students are challenged. I want them to think about things in ways that they never have before. I do not want them answering simply one word questions with little thought, but rather complex questions that cause them to question the things around them and develop their own beliefs. This chapter challenged me to think about more than simply what I want students to learn but how to make the most out of their learning and develop lessons that offer them all equal opportunities to reach these deep understandings.

Caleb
Ask questions. That’s all there is to it. Ask questions all the time. Whatever do you mean, Caleb? Let me break it down to you folks at home. When we are teachers, we tend to be focused on how we would learn from a lesson. This is not a bad thing or a good thing it’s just how we’ve been brought up. The best way for us to learn is to do it this way thus when I teach kids I want to teach them in the way that I think they would understand due to my own knowledge. Now, all of that is fine and dandy but we tend to exclude the multitude of learners that we’re not like us when we were growing up. When we teacher we need to ask questions that pertain to the students and more importantly to ourselves. For instance, I am constructing a lesson plan about graphs I shouldn’t go anywhere with thinking in my head “How can I get all of my students to understand this?” This one question can be broken down into every little category that deals with learners. There is a specific method to all of this madness known as the WHERETOs but in all honesty a process like this should not be needed at all. All the world is asking us to do is to question what we want to teach so we can make it better for our students. It is not a heart wrenching or time consuming process. If you want to teach then just ask the question “Are my students going to understand this?”

Jenn
In this chapter of UbD/DI, it discusses various methods of how to create deep understandings of the content, rather than memorization, through uncovering content, using the six facets of understanding, and WHERETO framework. One of the main ideas that sticks out to me in this chapter is, in order to create true understandings, using questions about a topic that relates to the students can be key. This involves using essential questions, but from there making a real world example that students can comprehend and connect to easily for either assessment or, even more interesting, as an introduction to the content. I can personally say this is not an approach I had given much thought of until reading this chapter. I like the idea of starting all the students out the same page by creating an interesting, engaging question, or a hook. It allows students who may not have any pre-existing knowledge feel comfortable participating, because the students are all faced with a new problem to solve. This relates back to the WHERETO model, which is a new idea to me. I really like how this model mentioned how important metacognition is in the learning process. It’s great if students can take the problem, understand it and solve it, but it doesn’t help if they don’t reflect on what they’re learning and how it affects them. I really feel this is a skill that many teachers skip over, but makes a huge difference between memorization and understanding, which is, of course, the ultimate goal of the model.

Jasmine
First of all, correlation does not ensure causality. Very few students will comprehend the meaning of textbooks without active intellectual work in the classroom that is guided by the teacher. Essential questions should be asked by the teacher to his/her self because there is certain things that need to be “covered” in every class according to the curriculum however, there needs to be a balance between understanding the material and covering as much as you can. As a math teacher, I will ask myself, when is the correct answer not the best solution? What are the limits of mathematical representation and modeling? What can I do to make math make sense? So many students get so frustrated because it just doesn’t make sense; it all just looks like magic on the whiteboard. This needs to change. Understanding needs to become top priority. Students need to care more about being successful rather than getting an A or being in AP or honors classes. They need to understand what is going on so that they will be prepared to move on. Teachers who regularly use essential questions often note that the line between teaching and assessing becomes blurred. If the essential questions are asked in the beginning of the year, in the middle and at the end, it can successfully show the growth of the class as a whole and of students as individuals. WHERETO framework is an acronym that teachers should use when they are planning lessons and units. The concept pushes teachers to see things from a student perspective and see how they think and what is important and relevant to them. The W reminds teachers to communicate goals to students. The H stands for how to hook students’ interest. The E stands for how to equip students to master standards. The R stands for how to encourage students to rethink previous learning. The E stands for how to promote self-evaluation and refection of the students. The T stands for how to tailor the learning activities in a diverse manner for all students. The O stands for how the learning experiences will be organized to maximize engaging and effective learning. WHERETO is something I had never heard of but definitely would like to use in my classroom because it seems like something that would be very effective and helpful to reach all students’ needs.

Jake
In this chapter, Tomlinson and McTighe discuss the importance of a deep comprehensive understanding of all subjects and not a simple, surface level, book knowledge understanding. They propose doing this through essential questions and the WHERETO framework.

Essential questions get at the heart of the content and are typically very open ended. They often address ideas like "why is this important?" and "How did it get here?". Essential questions help student to get more engaged with the material, and to make connections between the content and the real world. They get students thinking deeper about the subject and don't simply ask for regurgitated facts and knowledge, but for deep consideration of an idea

The WHERETO framework is more or less the students structured journey through the material. It begins with a simple introduction of the content, often introducing the subject and essential questions. It then moves into getting the students interested in the material through some sort of hook, almost like a sales pitch explaining why the information is beneficial. WHERETO then moves into equipping students to effectively engage, revision, self-evaluation, and organizing student learning for maximum benefit.

This is a mentality that I have always firmly believed, however until this point I was entirely clear on how one could facilitate learning in such way beyond physical experience with the idea or issue. The line between comprehension and apprehension have always been fuzzy. There is always another level to all forms of knowledge and one can always go a bit deeper. In my classroom I hope to push my students to go deeper with the material through essential question and methods like the WHERETO framework.

Dan
When we teach, we do not teach to have students memorize key terms. The big goal of teaching is to teach understanding. You do not want to just cover your content, but have your students uncover the more complexity underneath the surface. There are three different strategies to engage students into learning understanding. The essential question established in stage one (desired results) are one way to discover understanding. Taking the content of our concentration and labeling it as the answers to our essential questions greatly increase understanding, because students can relate back to the hows and whys, and see the quality of their discoveries. The best part of this strategy is that open-ended questions allow all students to answer, and can be easily personalized for them. When I become a teacher, I will try to relate everything back to the big picture question to broaden their horizons. The six facets of understanding can be used as hooks in order to capture the attention of students, but caution must be taken. These facets are not a means to an end, but rather a guide to engage students. I enjoyed the “jigsaw” idea, in which students received different facets to share with different groups. It is important that different ideas are expressed, because it helps stimulate understanding even further. It is important to not fall into the ladder concept of teaching: that is to say students should not master all skills before moving on, but rather learn as they progress. I will use the WHERETO acronym in order to remind myself of what I want my students to accomplish.

Katie
In chapter 7 of the UbDI book, the main ideas are that teachers should not focus on trying to “cover” material, but they should instead “uncover” the material. Coving material gives the impression that teachers are just going to skim over the main ideas and not focus on having their students understand the whole unit. “Uncovering” content means, “to frame the content as the answers to questions or the solutions to problems” (110). The six facets are brought up in this chapter with the thought that they help to “hook” students to a topic and engage them to think more detailed. This idea also correlates with the idea that people understand better when they are able to discuss a topic with others around them because each individual can benefit from others’ inputs on a topic. The WHERETO framework is brought up and discussed in more detail in this chapter by describing what each of the letters mean in terms of learning and teaching.

I believe that as teachers our main focus should be to teach our students what we feel they need to learn out of the unit and to not focus on finishing a text book. By doing this, the students will gain more of an understanding of the unit and we will be able to take it at our own pace based upon how well the students are getting a full understanding of what is being taught. If we just went by how fast we can get through the text book, our students will not learn the material correctly and will probably not have a full understanding of what is being taught. I feel that it is also important for the students to be engaged in what they are learning so that they will want to learn more about it.

Roger
In the seventh chapter of UbD/DI, the authors continue to discuss the application of differentiated instruction to the classroom. The first way they give of doing this is asking questions that relate to the topic. Another common sense idea there, but let’s move on. The next example is the use of the six facets. We’ve already been over that. The third and final example is actually quite useful – the WHERETO. This acronym provides an adequate framework for a good lesson plan. It actually encourages teachers to plan something of interest and value, since it asks the teacher quite directly if the lesson //is// of value.

Without getting into the absolute specifics of the WHERETO, I can say that it allows for everything that has been said in the past six chapters to be used in the classroom. It provides a framework that ensures that students’ interest (as I mentioned above), makes sure the material is relevant, and that is still flexible enough to be differentiated in the classroom. WHERETO ensures organization and a quality lesson.

That about sums up everything for this chapter. The WHERETO was the most valuable part of the chapter, and quite honestly the only reason why it was worth reading. Most everything else in the chapter was a review of sorts, or just some really obvious ideas used to take up page space. Two pages of examples was only a little ridiculous. (pp. 112-114)

Ally
The chapter is about how to teach academically diverse classrooms. This helps for students to understand the demands and the content in the classroom. The book described essential questions that should be asked before teaching a subject. Questions such as why are we doing this are frequently asked and if you answer them it might make a student more interested in the content. The idea of “how and why specific skills are beneficial and when they are best applied” (115) is important when teaching about the topic. The book stated “the open-ended nature of essential questions invites all learners to think and respond” (116) that way everyone can be involved and can relate to the content that is being taught. Making connections is important in the classroom because it keeps students interested. The next section was about the six facets these are used to begin activities of assessment. It allows you to take a generic directions such as explain and reformat it to be an interesting question like demonstrate. The difference between explain and demonstrate is explaining is usually writing about the subject while demonstrate is showing your knowledge about the subject. These facets relate to the idea that changing a verb on a question can help students succeed. The facets also allow for differentiated instruction you can use all six and have completely different projects just based on wording of the assignment. The WHERETO format is making sure your lesson has understanding for different learners. I found both of these formats to be extremely important because they will help teachers plan their lessons in an organized format. This will definitely help me as a teacher because I will be more organized with my materials and lessons just by following these formats. I don’t want to be the type of teacher that plans their lessons at the last minute I want to make sure I am prepared so I don’t have to just give my students some busy work.

Lizz
In chapter 7, the book says correlation does not ensure causality even if the textbook or teacher proclaims it. Few students actually comprehend meaning without active intellectual work, which would be guided by the teacher. Teachers have a lot of power in what the way they teach and what they actually cover in class. Some teachers can get through everything that they want to teach and everything they have to teach but some teachers use the excuse that there is too much material or there is not enough time. There needs to be balance between learning as much as possible and actually understanding the material. If there is not a balance, the students will not like you as much as they would if you had balance. As a health teacher I will have to keep my classroom balanced and know when the students need to go more in depth on a topic or if it is just a topic that I can cover then move on. One aspect of chapter 7 that was intriguing was the WHERETO framework which is an acronym that some teachers use when planning units and lesson plans. The W reminds teachers to communicate the goals clearly and help students see their relevance. The H stands for how to hook the student’s interest. E stands for equip students to master the standards. The R encourages teachers do explicitly include such opportunities. The E stands for evaluations and reflection of the students. The T points to the importance of tailoring teaching. The O simply reminds teachers to carefully consider the order as they decide the best means of reaching the desired results. The WHERETO framework will be something that I will incorporate into my lesson plans to ensure that all the points will be touched upon.

Brittany
As teachers we should be providing students with the opportunity not to memorize or regurgitate information, but to truly learn and understand information and how things in each content area affects their lives. Education should not be about covering a certain amount of content, but rather a certain amount of understanding about a content area, Through this understanding students can easily discover new information within a content area and "cover" what interests them as well as required information while still being able to explain, analyze and understand what they are reading, writing or seeing. Essential questions created in stage 1 are vital to bringing the subject from dry information students regurgitate to a level of new ways of thinking about things. The new way of thinking then leads to new ways of understanding, and allow students to get more from the questions asked of them. Rather than answering a question such as "What makes a great story" with a couple words or sentences, students would be able to fully understand and explain with examples the answer. After going over essential questions and assuring the students understand what is being asked of them, it is important to follow-up on the students to assess their comfort level, engagement, and understanding of the subject. Finally this chapter explained the ideas and concept behind WHERETO. I think this is a great way to organize the lesson and to be able to fully lay out the intentions and expected results of a class, lesson or unit. The steps in WHERETO could be student, like the essential questions, to show them what the teacher hopes to teach them. By doing this students would be able to have a new level of comfort in knowing what their teacher has planned as well as how they plan on doing it. Teachers could also use WHERETO to be sure their lesson will be truly beneficial. I definitely think this is something I will use in my future classroom, but I also think it is something that should be taught to older teachers whom students may have a difficult time in their class. This could organize older teachers, and reassure younger teachers that they are providing the opportunity for students to learn.

=Alex Slack= This Chapter was essentially what we will be learning in class next time based on the agenda. This is goes to show that the most effective from of educating educators is being put into effect, literally. Also in this chapter was literally word for word what we have done before with the facets of understanding. Yet what I learned the most form this section was the importance of essential questions. I mean essential questions are one of those things you think back to Primary School when you hear “Now kids in order to be successful you need to not only be able to answer questions but… ask questions as well. The better the question the better you look.” We all look back at this and go “big deal” but becoming a teacher and asking questions is just something you do on the daily. Therefore asking essential questions is a skill that I will master. This chapter clearly tells the process of asking essential questions and how you need to find the essence or the true fact that you want the kids to learn, and open kids to new ideas for them to get excited about. I really enjoyed the section of the chapter where they gave essential questions for so many different parts of school and so many different ways of getting the kids engaged and making connections.

While chapter 6 was about responsive teaching, chapter 7 talks about teaching for understanding. In order for teachers to teach students to understand the content, they must first uncover it. What this means is that teachers must not teach the tip of the iceberg, they must dive down and explore what lies beneath it. Instead of covering the basic ideas of a unit, dig deeper and uncover the big ideas that make the information relevant. It is also necessary to incorporate the essential questions in Stage 1 into Stage 3. Essential questions should not lead to one correct answer, but act as a base line for students to divert and find their own answers. Do not just ask these questions once. Revisit them and expect for complex and sophisticated answers.

In order to keep all of this organized, stick to these six facets; explain, interpret, apply, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. Using each of the facets, think of a list of possible learning activities that students can do for each of the facets and use the one that would fit best to the lesson. Another way to plan lessons that keeps understanding in mind is the WHERETO framework. WHERETO stands for **W**here, **W**hy and **W**hat, **H**ook, **E**quip, **E**xplore, **E**xperience, **R**ethink, **R**evise, **R**efine, **E**valuate, **T**ailor, and **O**rganized. The W is meant to guide what the students will understand, why it is relevant, and what will be used to evaluate them. The hook is how the teacher will get the student's attention. Equip is what the students will learn, how they will organize it, and how they will present it. The R is for personal, peer, and teacher revisions. The second E is how the students will be assessed. The T is how the teacher will address each student's learning needs. Finally, O is how students will present their project and how much time they will have to do it.