UbD Chapter 3

Chapter 3 starts out with two quotes at the beginning one of which I thought was very powerful because of its truthfulness in life. The quote is by Kierkegaard which states the following: "Life can only be understood backwards;but it must be lived forwards." How true is this statement?! We live life making sense out of the past experiences we have; however, it is impossible to live backwards. This idea of planning lessons by backward design does make a lot of sense once you begin to understand the concept and its goals. Just like we are able to make sense out of our present situations and choices in life based on our past experiences, triumphs and mistakes. After reading into this chapter for a couple of pages, I was reminded of the importance of the standards that we use to prioritize our work, and "keep our eye on the prize" (p.58) I have often stopped to wonder back in the day when I was in elementary school in the 70's what teachers used to guide their instruction and keep their eye on the prize. In other words, what did teachers use before the idea of standards come along? Today at the GLAD training, the trainers made the point that if a teacher were to teach all of the standards individually it would take 24 years. Obviously teachers do not have 24 years to get through all of them. At Rocketship we as a staff went through the standards for Language Arts and Math at each grade level and pulled out the top 10 standards that we will focus on for the year. I have never been a part of such a brilliant way to tackle the standards that makes a lot of sense. Chapter 3 gets into that dilemna a little bit regarding the use of standards in designing lessons. It mentioned three problems with standards. First, there is an overload problem. Too many and not enough time. The second problem is called the "Goldilocks Problem." This simply means that some standards are too big and too broad. Some are too small, and these send messages to students and teachers that school learning is nothing more than memorizing facts and passing tests of recall. Problem number three is that the standards are open to interpretation and too vague. Finally, I would like to add that learning with understanding is more likely to promote transfer than memorizing. Identify a few big ideas and design around them. Pick the area that will serve as what the authors call the "linchpin." The big idea is the linchpin of understanding. I liked how the authors used this word to demonstrate this concept.