Understanding by Design

I’ve been on a journey with ChatGPT. I was watching a YouTube lecture about a teaching paradigm called Understanding by Design. I asked ChatGPT about it. Now I’ve ended up putting together a 1,500-word design document for my newsletter.

After all, what is a newsletter but an attempt to teach?

So with ChatGPT’s assistance we brainstormed a design document for my newsletter over several hours. When I started, my newsletter was a loose collection of posts. Now, I have an overall sense of what it could become and how I can start improving it.

If anyone is interested in UbD, here is ChatGPT’s introduction to the framework.

Understanding By Design (UbD) is a widely recognized and used framework for curriculum design and teaching. Developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, the UbD approach is based on backward design, which means that instruction is planned starting with the desired results or learning outcomes, and then working backward to develop the lessons.

Here’s a breakdown of the key components of Understanding By Design:

• Identify Desired Results: Determine what you want your students to know and be able to do by the end of the instruction. This usually involves identifying essential questions that guide the learning and determining the desired knowledge and skills.
• Determine Assessment Evidence: Decide how you will know if students have achieved the desired results. This involves designing assessments (both formative and summative) that provide evidence of students’ understanding.
• Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction: This is where the actual teaching methods come in. Based on the desired outcomes and the assessments, you plan the instructional activities, resources, and content that will guide students towards the desired understanding.

The primary goal of UbD is to focus on teaching for understanding rather than just rote memorization or superficial learning. It’s about making learning meaningful and ensuring that students can apply what they learn in different contexts.