Understanding by Design Plan

Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe is a very interesting book. In the book is a template that can be used by educators to assist in planning units for instruction. Last week I presented my BHAG. The BHAG could be considered the view of my goals from the top of a skyscraper. The Understanding by Design (UbD) is for designing and developing the units with the BHAG. The UbD would be a view from the fifth floor of the skyscraper.

My BHAG is not on a particular subject area. Therefore, the development of the UbD was very challenging to me. One of my worries that I mentioned in my BHAG was the discussion questions. Will my students be able to transfer the discussions that we have in the 4-walled classroom to the online setting? Will my students remember to be respectful while responding to classmates? Will my students remember to respond to classmates at all? Since this area is one of my concerns, I decided to complete the UbD template on discussion questions.

As you can see, the UbD template is divided into three sections. I feel that this particular template would be very well suited for planning a unit. I found it difficult and challenging to plan online discussion questions based upon this template. I think the challenge is coming from the fact that I'm not referencing a particular subject, unit, or standard. With that said, the template intrigues me. I think it will be useful for me when I begin to plan specific subjects that will be in the online classroom.

Reference:

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design (expanded second ed.). Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.