Understanding by Design Revisited

Post for 11/15

We discussed a lot of things in today's class. Among them; classroom management by means of Google docs & forms, mental preparation for a future lesson study and a lot of discussion about what to expect in relation to student teaching and our first year on the job. However, I think a class that focused on general housekeeping was really useful for me this week. Reviews and reminders often help me clarify my own thoughts and distill initially jumbled ideas into something more coherent later on.

We spent another day largely talking about Understanding by Design and particularly spending a good amount of time on Assessment. I will avoid rehashing and regurgitating what we discussed in class but will instead focus on how I find UbD helps me in my own preparations as a novice teacher. As I said, I have a tendency to think too quickly and get ahead of myself before a more articulate thought can catch up. By using UbD in my practice lesson plans, it provides a format and useful procedure to follow to narrow down what is important. It's simply a matter of discipline and avoiding the arbitrary in our preparations. I could randomly choose a performance task for students to complete easily, but what does it accomplish? Where did it come from and what is the endgame? It helps having UbD as a mindset and framework for self-discipline. That said, when working in a real environment with real students it will be even more important to have a rational framework as a basis. Not to keep plans rigid and unwavering but instead to have a grounding in purpose and thus a direction if improvisation is necessary. I'm not sure if I'm right here but it's what I'm thinking about right now, at least.