May 22nd,
2013
Because school is getting out so early for us and
the topic that I choose for my Backwards Design (BD) unit I knew that I had to
have all of my ducks in a row right away.
For my BD unit I decided to focus on Living & Non-Living Things because
it was the only major independent unit of study that I had yet to teach this
year. Another reason I choose this unit is because it seems like every year when I
teach living & non-living it is very unintentional and rushed. This year I had plenty of time to plan and
implement it. I planned for this unit to
take 3 weeks to complete. I began
teaching the week of April 22 and wrapped it up on May 10th (just in
time for Mother’s Day). How’s that for
intentional? So, here are the answers to
how my unit went:
A) How did planning with
the standards at the forefront of the unit impact your teaching? I I think that by planning with the
standards at the forefront of the unit greatly impacted my teaching. I didn’t use just fun stuff in my instruction
to make things look cute; I used necessary tools and had specific learner
outcomes in mind so I could instruct with intention. I had a very focused
direction that I went when teaching Living & Non-Living Things. I had a “Big Idea” that was driving my lesson
planning.
B) How did
you utilize the enduring understandings and essential questions while you were
teaching the unit? What was their impact?
The Essential Questions guided my discussions with my students. They also helped to guide our attention so we
could stay on task. The questions that I
asked were deeper thinking and promoted authentic thoughts and ideas. The Enduring Understandings helped to keep my
lessons organized and more intentional. I
appreciated that I had a clear understanding of what I was teaching and why
I was teaching it.
C) What was
the impact of creating the assessments prior to teaching the lesson? How did it
alter your perspective and your teaching? How did it affect the overall
learning of the students?
I loved knowing that the assessments that I used would
be directly related with the learner outcomes and the kids knew what they were
expected to know after this unit. I
liked that the assessments that I put into place were hands-on and that I was
able to use multiples ways to assess my students’ knowledge (i.e. technology, work
samples, observations and activities.
After completing the UbD Stage 2 assignment it was nice to see that most
of my assessment would be formative and that I could easily adapt the lesson if
my student didn’t completely understand the “Big Ideas”.
D) Compare
your teaching of this content using BD planning to times when you have taught
it without planning “with the end in mind.” What did you notice? How was it
different for you and/or your students?
Teaching using the BD philosophy really put things into
perspective for me. I tend to teach
concepts based on what will hold the students’ attention and what will get
noticed or what looks cute. I realized
that if I have a “Big Idea” at the forefront I can still do those things that
are fun, but I need to make sure that the students are learning the content based
on the “Big Idea”. I would love to teach
using the BD philosophy because I want my students to walk away with a deeper
understanding that they can connect with.
Overall, using the BD philosophy felt very intentional and deliberate.
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