{"id":1975,"date":"2016-11-15T06:48:32","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T14:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/?p=1975"},"modified":"2017-02-18T09:58:19","modified_gmt":"2017-02-18T17:58:19","slug":"big-ideas-and-course-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/2016\/11\/15\/big-ideas-and-course-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Big ideas and course design"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;A big idea\u00a0must have pedagogical power: It must enable the learner to make sense of what has come before; and, most notably, be helpful in making new, unfamiliar ideas seem more familiar\u2026.a big idea is not just another fact or a vague abstraction but a conceptual tool for sharpening thinking, connecting discrepant pieces of knowledge, and equipping learners for transferable applications.\u201d <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ascd.org\/Publications\/Books\/Overview\/Understanding-by-Design-Expanded-2nd-Edition.aspx\">Wiggins &amp; McTighe<\/a>, 2005, p.70)<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a title=\"dandelion\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stephcarter\/1348264526\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c7.staticflickr.com\/2\/1156\/1348264526_ca792eaf18.jpg\" alt=\"dandelion\" width=\"500\" height=\"486\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Below are some notes on the concept of &#8220;Big Ideas,&#8221; as presented in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ascd.org\/Publications\/Books\/Overview\/Understanding-by-Design-Expanded-2nd-Edition.aspx\">Understanding by Design<\/a>.\u00a0This information is part of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ctlt.ubc.ca\/programs\/all-our-programs\/course-design-intensive\/\">Course Design Intensive<\/a>, a 3-day workshop for university instructors seeking to design or re-design a course.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Big ideas are at the core\u00a0of a\u00a0subject\/field. They are o<\/span>ften abstract, non-obvious, and counterintuitive to the novice (Note 1).\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Big ideas are essential for making coherent connections in a field and are a conceptual anchor that makes facts more understandable and useful (p.80).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A big idea can manifest in various formats (phrase, words, question etc).\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In pedagogical practice, a big idea may appear\u00a0as a helpful:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">concept (e.g. adaptation, perspective)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">theme (e.g. \u201ccoming of age\u201d)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">on-going debate and point of view (e.g. nature versus nurture, conservatives vs liberals)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">paradox (e.g. freedom must have limits)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">theory (e.g. evolution vs natural selection, social constructivism)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">underlying assumption (e.g. markets are rational)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">recurring question (e.g. \u201cCan we provide it?\u201d \u201cIs that fair?\u201d)\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>understanding or principles (e.g. correlation does not ensure causality, the reader has to question the text to understand it) \u00a0(p.70)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>From the above examples, we can see that big ideas are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">broad and abstract<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">represented by few words<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">universal in application<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">timeless (p.69)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In summary, a big idea:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">provides a conceptual lens<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">provides breadth of meaning by connecting and organizing many facts, skills and experiences<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">points to ideas that are at the heart of expert understanding of the subject\/field<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">requires \u201cuncoverage\u201d because its meaning or value is rarely obvious to learner<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">applies to many other inquiries and issues over time (great transfer value) (p.69)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Note 1: Wiggins &amp; McTighe distinguish big ideas from basic ideas. The latter, they write, are &#8220;the basis for further work; for example, definitions, building-block skills, and rules of thumb.&#8221; (p.67).<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Basic term<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>Core idea<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Graph<\/td>\n<td>&#8220;Best fit&#8221; curve of the data<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Ecosystem<\/td>\n<td>Natural selection<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Fact versus opinion<\/td>\n<td>Credible thesis<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: Stephanie Carter, &#8220;dandelion&#8221;\u00a0https :\/\/flic.kr\/p\/349d57<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &#8220;A big idea\u00a0must have pedagogical power: It must enable the learner to make sense of what has come before; and, most notably, be helpful in making new, unfamiliar ideas seem more familiar\u2026.a big idea is not just another fact or a vague abstraction but a conceptual tool for sharpening thinking, connecting discrepant pieces of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":792,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,573],"tags":[290769,296934,573],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-teaching","tag-big-ideas","tag-course-design","tag-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/792"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1990,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/1990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/iiqbal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}