Tag Archives: UBD

UBD Stage 1 – Desired Results (KUD): Update for Wednesday, 9 November 2011

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We forged ahead with our unit planning piece today starting with a Wordle of your one-word “I feel” responses to the UBD introductory PPT last session.  Here’s the Wordle:

Wordles are simple to create and can be a powerful teaching tool.

KUD Sort

In an effort to help you recognize the difference between:

  • K- know (facts, dates, vocab, definitions)
  • U – understand (“truths”, principles, theories, generalization, big ideas)
  • D – do (skills, behavioural outcomes)

We gave you a set of KUD statements (unidentified as such) and asked you to sort them into the category that they fit best.  Afterward, we did a Gallery Walk and checked your categorization against the Answer Key.

When a C4U indicated that understanding of each element of KUD was high, we developed KUD statements consistent with this Life Sciences: Ecosystems PLO from the Science 7 IRP:

  • Evaluate the human impacts on local ecosystems

We came up with a list of items under each heading and discovered that the PLO itself is actually a D – do, as it focuses on the skill that students should develop.  A K for this outcome would be a definition of ecosystem and a U could be that human actions impact ecosystems and/or organisms in an ecosystems are linked to one another.

To close, we asked you to apply your KUD understanding by choosing a PLO you’ll use on your 2-Week prac and developing a KUD chart for it.  Please bring this KUD chart to class on Monday, 14 November 2011.

Assignement Reminders

  • Reading #5 – Aoki Entrance Slip: Entrance Slip due on Saturday, 12 November 2011
  • Classroom Observation Task: Due via email or hard copy on Monday, 14 November 2011

 

– Lawrence

 

Lesson Planning Suggestions, Sims Inquiry Questions & an Intro to UBD Unit Planning: Update for Monday, 7 November 2011

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After a reminder about the Microteaching Analysis task due today and the Classroom Observation Task due next week, we got down to business.

Lesson Planning Suggestions

Dave and I require the you include both a Teacher Activity and Student Activity column in your lesson plans.  This will allow you to imagine what you will do as you teach and – perhaps more importantly – what the students will be doing as they learn.

We also urged you to include all of the Lesson Design components – mental set, stating the objective, input, modeling, checking for understanding, practice, and closure – whenever possible.  I made reference to the fact that 62 % of my non-management related comments to last year’s TCs on their 2-Week Prac referenced issues related to lesson design.  The better the design, the better the implementation and the better the learning.

You might be interested to see what my “What To Work On” comments were for last year’s TCs during their 2-Week Prac.  The first file is the comments I showed in class – the ones missing the management comments.  The second files contains all the suggestions.  Take a look and see if you can notice what themes emerge:

Sims Article Discussion


As a means of processing the Sims reading, Dave asked you to sort all of the questions she asks in the article into categories that made sense to you.  We then wrote those categories on the board and looked for some common threads.  The goal here was:

  • to consider the types of topics inquiry questions can deal with
  • to examine how questions can evolve
  • to consider the messy nature of inquiry.

Here’s a photo of the categories you came up with courtesy of Lovey’s writing and Eric Man’s camera (with a dash of Jan the ham mixed in):

Introduction to UBD

We started our look at unit planning today.  To that end, I shared a PPT slideshow that touched on some key ideas related to the Understanding by Design model.  Here’s that PPT presentation:

Also, here are the vignettes we played with in my session:

I will take a peek through your exit slips and comment on them at the start of next class.  Also, in that class we will take a deeper look at Stage 1: Desired Results.

Reading Entrance & Exit Slips


Here’s what’s due and when:

  • Monday, 7 November 2011 = Sims Exit Slip
  • Saturday, 12 November 2011 = Aoki (Reading #5) Entrance Slip
  • Monday, 14 November 2011 = Aoki Exit Slip

’til next time.

– LH

LLED 320 – Unit Plan Conferences, KUD, Performance Tasks & DI: Update for Thursday, 3 Feb 2011

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Well, today’s class didn’t go quite as I’d envisioned.  In my mind, I spent too much time talking and, as a result, we didn’t get done all that I had hoped we would.  Anyway, here’s what we did accomplish:

Writing Tasks In

I’ve collected the pieces and will mark them over the next two weeks or so.  There’s a lot of them!

Assessment Q&A

I took some time to address some of the assessment questions that you had posed on exit slips at the end of a previous class.

Unit Planning: Individual Conferences

I’ve cancelled class on Thursday, 10 Feb 2011 to set aside some time for 15-minute conferences about your unit plans.  Also, to ensure that I had times set aside that suited everybody’s schedule, I also will be holding meetings on Tuesday, 15 Feb and Thursday, 24 Feb.  Here’s the schedule (as of 3 Feb):

In preparation for this meeting, please prepare the following items and bring them along to the conference:

  • Subject and topic of your unit (Science & Water systems, for example)
  • Key PLOs related to your topic
  • Desired Results / KUD (Knowledge, Understanding, and Do/Skills) for your unit
  • Rough ideas on assessment for your unit.
  • Ideas on how you might be able to integrate some aspect of LA – writing, representing, reading, viewing, speaking, or listening – into one of the unit’s lessons

Unit Planning: Goals, Performance Tasks, and Differentiated Instruction

I attended a Pro D Workshop last Friday with Cindy Strickland from ASCD.  She is a Differentiated Instruction guru doing work playing with and extending the DI thinking of Carol Tomlinson.  Seeing as the information I picked up was very relevant to our work on unit planning, I thought I’d share it with you in this class.

Here were my goals:

  • Demonstrate a way to outline a unit’s goals using a KUD framework
  • Show how performance tasks can be developed as a means for students to show their attainment of the KUD
  • Illustrate how performance tasks can be differentiated to better meet the needs of all students
  • Allow you to apply your understanding of performance tasks and differentiation to a unit you’re developing for the long practicum.

After showing a short PPT on clouds – Clouds PPT Slideshow– to get you up to speed with what information the students working on this weather unit had been working with, I showed you an example of three summative performance tasks for the weather unit and asked you to determine, by looking at the tasks, what you thought the KUD of the unit was.  In other words, what did the teacher expect her students to Know, Understand, and Do that was related to clouds?

After that, you thought of other final product scenarios that the students could complete that would show their KUD but tap into different student interests and abilities.  This is where the differentiation piece came in.

How can we, as teachers, provide varied opportunities for students to show us what they know?  As we answer this question, we can start to find ways to differentiate our instruction and our assessment in ways that are responsive to the needs of all students.

Here’s the handout we used in class:

Unit Planning: GRASPS Peformance Tasks

Performance tasks are summative assessments that are:

  • personalized
  • open-ended
  • complex
  • based on real-world work
  • aimed at an identified audience

The Understanding By Design (UBD) unit planning model we’ve been working with in 310 class promotes the design of performance tasks based on the features suggested by the acronym GRASPS:

  • G=goal
  • R=role
  • A=audience
  • S=situation
  • P=product, performance, & purpose
  • S=standards & criteria

We analyzed the cloud unit performance tasks through the lens of the GRASPS aspects and then did one of two things:

  1. Looked at other performance tasks to see how they demonstrated the GRASPS elements
  2. Developed a GRASPS based performance task for a unit you’ll be teaching on the long prac.

Here’s a handout with all sorts of info related to performance tasks, including a handy dandy list of Possible Student Roles and Audiences in addition to Possible Products and Performances:

Haikus Handed In

As a ticket out the door, I collected your 3 haiku poems.  We’ll be revising these in a future lesson seeing as we ran out of time this class.

– Lawrence

Sims Says, Assessment Evidence, & 315 Bits and Pieces: Update for Wednesday, 24 November 2010

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“Sims Says Inquiry Is…”

We started class by considering the EDUC 310 Inquiry Task.  I used a PPT slideshow to structure the lesson, and the presentation aimed to answer three key questions:

  • What are the qualities of teacher inquiry?
  • What’s involved in the inquiry project?
  • What constitutes a good inquiry question?

After recalling your prior inquiry-related knowledge to answer the first question and picking out a few highlights from the EDUC 310 Course Outline and elsewhere to address the second, we discussed the attributes of a powerful inquiry question through the lens of the article “How My Question Keeps Evolving” by Michele Sims.

Here’s the slideshow that supported this lesson:

At the end of this class, I assigned the exit slip – completing the EDUC 310 Inquiry Project One Pager – MIDDLE YEARS COHORT.   On the front of the page are some questions to stimulate thinking about research questions, if you’re stuck at the moment, and some sample questions drafted by Elementary TCs.  On the back of the page are four questions that you need to answer on the handout and bring to class on Wednesday, 2 December 2010.  Please note that, in a manner similar to what Sims experienced, this question may evolve as you think on it and as you spend more time in the field.

If, as Confucius declared, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” consider this your first, tentative foot forward.  A baby step. if you please.

Oh, that reminds me.  Here’s how Bob (Bill Murray) “baby steps” in the comedy opus, What About Bob?:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JPa2mvSQ4[/youtube]

Bob sails, too:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrbY4hsNh64&feature=related[/youtube]

Here’s the one-pager in electronic form:

In the end, let’s hope your inquiry proceeds more smoothly than this woman’s:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FRVvjGL2C0[/youtube]

UBD Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence

In preparation for the completion of the unit plan you’ll use on your 2-Week Prac, I presented some information related to the assessment of your desired results via this PPT slideshow:

Here are a few key slides from that presentation, for your reference:

Lastly, here’s a good case for assessing beyond the test:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCuHTMHRBS4&feature=related[/youtube]

Bob and I will be meeting with you on Monday to discuss your unit planning. All meetings are in SCARFE 1310.  Please bring:

  • Your completed Desired Results
  • Your thoughts on possible assessment tools
  • Any key resources that you may use in your teaching to this meeting.

The Conference Schedule is in the previous post.

At the end of class, I asked you to pick up a handout with samples of and information on how to create engaging and well-constructed Performance Tasks.  Here’s that handout if you didn’t get one or if your dog ate it:

Check out this link for a website with more details on Performance Tasks. For even more info, use Google to search the Interwebs using search terms such as: “performance task” “rich task” “authentic assessment” and “authentic education”.

I did that and found this site – Authentic Assessment Toolbox – that has a huge collection of information on PTs, including a bunch of tasks created for all subject areas in middle school.  Here’s a screenshot so you can see what’s on offer:

That’s all for now.  Bob and I look forward to meeting with you on Monday.

‘Til then,

– Lawrence

Microteaching, Take 2 & Housekeeping: Update for Monday, 22 November 2010

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Microteaching

Thanks to the groups that presented today.  Please watch your video, reflect on it, and submit your analysis – done individually or as a group – to me by Monday, 29 November 2010. Please use the format on the task handout and reviewed in previous posts.

Housekeeping

– Microteaching Analysis Due: If you presented last week, your analysis is due to me today.  Thanks.

– EDUC 315 Reminders: Please send me a copy of (1) a lesson you taught and your reflection on it, (2) a copy of your SA’s teaching timetable, and (3) your end-of-prac feedback form.  This last item should be the focus of a prac-wrap-up conversation tomorrow.

– Upcoming Classwork Items: (1) Read the Sims article and create an entrance slip for it complete with some of your own possible inquiry questions and (2) complete the Desired Results piece for one or more PLOs you’ll be using as you teach during the 2-Week Prac.  Bring both items to Wednesday’s class, please.

– Unit Plan Conference Schedule: Thanks for signing up for these conferences.  The schedule is below (mine on page 1 and Bob’s on page 2).  All meetings are in SCARFE 1310.  Please bring your completed Desired Results, your thoughts on possible assessment tools, and any key resources that you may use in your teaching to this meeting.

For your reference, here are a few 2-Week Prac unit planned in previous years.  While the template for these units is a little different than the one we’re using, take a look and get a sense of what your finished product might look like:

That’s all for tod… oh wait, I almost forgot.  Here’s a beginning-of-class-rant-related reminder about the importance of handwashing:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOeQh2-ci3M[/youtube]

– Lawrence

Admin. & UBD Planning – Stage 1: Update for Wednesday, 17 November 2010

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Administrivia

– Calendar: There’s been a change to the schedule.  As such, here’s what the next two Wednesdays will look like:

  • Wednesday, 24 November – 10:00 to 12:00 = Sims Article Discussion & More UBD Unit Planning
  • Wednesday, 1 December – 10:00 to 11:00 = Pre-Prac Preparation

– Reading: Please read the Sims article, “How my question keeps evolving” and develop an entrance slip for it.  As a part of your entrance slip, please jot down a few teaching and learning-related questions that you might be interested in exploring in more detail.

– EDUC 315 Paperwork: There is one formal paperwork requirement as a part of the Tuesdays practicum.  The forms are below.  You and your SA will each complete the appropriate form and email them both to me.  Before you send them off, however, I suggest that you both discuss your completed forms next Tuesday – 23 November, the last school visit of EDUC 315.  This conversation can serve to wrap up this prac experience and look ahead to your two weeks in January.

– Microteaching: I handed back the rubrics completed by the peer assessors and a feedback sandwich that summarized my thoughts on your presentation.  After you’ve completed your reflection – the post-microteaching task due on Monday, 22 November for those that presented on Monday – take a look at the feedback and see how it jives with your thoughts on your performance.

UBD Unit Planning – Stage 1: Desired Results

Now that you have a good idea of the subject, topic, and PLO(s) that you’ll be working with during your 2-week practicum, we started to look at how to design a unit that will develop student understanding on the topic.

To that end, I presented a PPT slideshow that highlighted how to unpack PLOs to uncover the:

  • Big Ideas
  • Understandings
  • Essential Questions
  • Skills
  • Knowledge

that, when played with in class, will lead to student understanding of the topic under study.  Here’s my slideshow:

Here’s a copy of the chart for the HCE 8 Substance Use PLO we unpacked in the guided practice part of the lesson:

… and here’s a blank template you can use to unpack one or more PLOs that you will work with during your January prac:

The unpacking process can be a bit tricky for new and experienced teachers alike.  Seeing as the process starts with identifiying the Big Ideas – the concepts, themes, issues, debates, problems, challenges, processes, theoriex, paradoxes, assumptions, and perspectives – that lie at the heart of the topic, here’s a short blurb on how to identify the Big Ideas more easily.  This excerpt comes from Tomlinson and McTighe’s book, Integrating Differentiated Instruction + Understanding by Design:

Here’s the complete UBD unit planning template:

We’ll be working with the other sections of it in future classes, namely on Wednesday, 24 November.

The rough draft of your 2-week prac unit is due to your SA and FA on Monday, 6 December 2010.  What we expect you to submit at that point is:

  • a completed unit plan template
  • full lesson plans for the first two lessons of the unit

Bob and I will be meeting with the TCs we supervise to discuss your unit planning ideas on Monday, 29 November.  You will have a chance to set up a meeting time with Bob or in class on Monday, 22 November.  For this meeting, you should have a firm idea of Stage 1 – Desired Results and have considered the sort of assessment you’d like to use to determine if the students understand what you’ve been teaching.

EDUC 315 Info, POT/COM Calendar, and UBD Unit Planning: Update for Wednesday, 3 November 2010

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EDUC 315 Information

– Anecdotal Observation Forms:  I handed out a few triplicate observation forms for use by your SA as she or he observes your lessons.  Most SAs prefer to write up their notes on the computer as the lesson progresses but some observations – namely movement around the classroom – lend themselves almost exclusively to writing by hand.  Please deliver these forms to your SA and, if they want more, let me know so I can deliver them.

– Computer Passwords: You will need an SD43 or SD40 username and password to access district email and other online resources.  The sooner you can get these, the better.  To do so, please see the secretaries in the office.  One of them may be able to do this for you or, at the very least, they will be able to give you the name of the school’s computer site contact.  The site contact should be able to make the request for your usernames and passwords.   Let me know if you run into a snag here.

– Overhead Transparencies: [NOTE: This suggestion was given to my by Jan, the lead secretary at Minnekhada, and I’m passing it on to you at her request.] Unfortunately, acetate sheets used to make overhead transparencies have a bad habit of getting stuck in photocopiers and melting on the machine’s rollers.  This can put a copier out of commission for days.  So, before you attempt to make an overhead, I recommend requesting a quick tutorial.

– Yellow “Preparing For Success in Your Initial Practica” Handout: I urged you to take a look at this document that I passed out during our Pre-Practicum Preparation Seminar in September and make note of what you have already accomplished and what’s left to do.  You needn’t do everything on the list but it does give you a good idea of activites to engage in as the 2nd half of the Tuesdays prac kicks in.

Here’s a copy if yours has gone walkabout:

– End of Practicum Paperwork: You’re keeping informal reflections and your SA is taking informal notes on the lesson(s) you are delivering at this point.  The only formal paperwork that needs to be taken care of is this one-pager to be completed just before the final Tuesday on 23 November.  I recommend bringing a printed copy to school on that day so you can discuss your completed form with your SA.  Your SA should return the favour.  For easy reference, here are the forms.  By the way, they both gather the same information, but the TC one is in the first person:

POT/COM Calendar

There are a few out of the ordinary things taking place over the next few days so I wanted you to have the heads up.  Here goes:

Monday, 8 November 2010

  • 9:30 – 11:00: Communication Needs of Aboriginal Children and Families Lecture – First Nations House of Learning
  • 11:10 – 12:00: eFolio Presentation from eCoaches in SCARFE 1007 – Computer Lab
  • 12:00 – 12:30: Microteaching Preparation Time

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

  • 10:00 – 11:00 – Working with UBD Stage 1 – Desired Results & Discussing the Henderson article (Be sure to have your entrance slip ready to go)

NOTE: Bonus points to anyone who says the author’s name with the same flair as Foster Hewitt does while making this classic call from 1972:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMf2fAXPS1Q[/youtube]

UBD Unit Planning

In preparation for today’s look at UBD unit planning, I had you read the article “Put Understanding First” by UBD creators Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins.  I then had you pull three key words from your entrance slip and write those words down on a slip of paper.  Here’s the list of words that the class wrote down:

impacting challenging exciting transfer cross-curriculum questions scaffolding critical thinking frustration first rung public syllabus meaningful sequence rethink meaningful practical regurgitate meaning purposeful untraditional order focus facilitator meaningful opportunity practice understanding transfer meaning boring stimuli meaningful-sequence questioning political agora transfer meaning acquisition understanding strategies different approaches application-task guided-transfer pressured meaning connections critical thinking unclear-goals make-meaning transfer-learning transfer-ability life-skills connect-to-practical transfer boring captivate connection application inquiry

Amanda kindly entered all these words into the Create page of Wordle.net and we created this image:

According to the website:

“Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

Wordles have many applications in a classroom setting.  I urge you to think about how you can use this software in the work you do with your students on practicum.

The Wordle highlighted several key ideas promoted by McTighe and Wiggins in their UBD unit planning model.  I elaborated on this model in my PPT presentation and we will continue to look at unit planning in subsequent lessons.  Here’s my slideshow:

‘Til Monday.

– Lawrence