UbDDI+Chapter+7



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Rachel B.
Through personal experience throughout the many years of my educational journey I’ve felt the pressure of “covering the material,” and how ineffective it really can be. Instead of absorbing, reflecting, understanding and caring for the material at hand you end up hurrying, memorizing to soon forget and a having a “just get though it” attitude about the material, when it’s all about covering. I don’t want that for my students, and I certainly hope that all teachers don’t intend to do that. It is just that to really understand the material, the experience with it, the learning process, needs to be about more than just covering material. Overall I like how this chapter ties in what we are currently practicing in Dr. Graces class, WHERETO and the idea of, as a teacher, constantly stepping it up with hooks, revision, rethinking, self-assessment and wonderfully fun, technology filled products or O’s, Organize.

Jen T
I agree with all of the information in Figure 7.1. It must be hard, as a teacher, to fit in all the activities you want in one class, and also allow your students the time they need to internally process information. Many teachers are impatient when it comes to lessons, rushing students from one point to the next, without letting them make the proper connections in between. Wow, a lot of information looks familiar. I hope that after awhile, I won’t need to make a WHERETO for every lesson, and that it will just come naturally and basically be imprinted on my brain FOREVER. I am still a little confused about what exactly the WHERETO is, but I think by the end of this week I will be amazing

Rachel F.
Great teachers always remember that understanding must be earned. Chapter 7 begins by talking about the mistake so many teachers make when they “cover” material. When teachers are mostly focused on stuffing in as much material as possible, they do not concentrate on actually making sure the students understand and really know the material. To really understand and learn a subject, teachers must learn to uncover the content. By doing so, students will learn more and the teaching quality will be tremendously greater. A great way to ensure understanding is to frame the content being taught as answers to questions. The questions are subject specific and are vague so there is not just one correct answer. Students are then encouraged to really think about the answers and the knowledge. The six facets of understanding have many uses, one of which is as great ways to create activities that hook students around a topic. Focus on just the facets that will engage the students and help them understand. Finally, WHERETO is a great acronym that gives teachers a better idea of how to reach maximum understanding. The acronym reminds teachers to communicate goals, hook the students in, engage them, encourage revision and rethinking, allow for self-assessment, tailor for diverse learners, and create a harmonious order. My classroom will benefit from information from this chapter because they won’t be so confused and lost throughout my whole class. I will strive to make sure they understand everything.

Geoff
I like the mindset of “uncovering” rather than “covering” content, and trying to cover as much of it as possible. Teachers are under a lot of pressure to cover a lot of material, with standards, learning results, high-stakes testing, and calls for greater teacher accountability. All of these things make it more difficult to go in depth with material; we resign to the “mile wide, inch deep” approach, an approach I want to stay away from. I want to help students discover and construct their own meanings for history, because I think it is important that we know our history, and that we know how far we have come and what we have accomplished to take each progression in the past another step forward into the future. I also like how Tomlinson and McTighe tie in use of essential questions, the six facets of understanding, and WHERETO to help us shift from “covering” to “uncovering” content. As a teacher, I plan on posting the essential understandings and essential questions for all of the students to access for every unit, and I like the idea of using the essential questions as a form of initial diagnostic assessment; I would probably use a K/W/L chart along with that. I also liked the follow-up strategies in figure 7.1 in chapter seven of //Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design//, because I immediately noticed that I have used some of these strategies while out at Mt. Blue. Among these, I found some that I excelled at, like using wait time and follow-up questions, and some that I struggled with, like calling on students randomly. In this chapter, I found plenty of great suggestions that I will use in the classroom, as well as things I am already doing as a practicum student, with some things that I am doing well, and others that I need work on.

Karin
This chapter taught me about the “WHERETO” method of teaching. “W” is about finding evidence, “H” is about getting the students’ attention, “E” is about the experiences that the teacher wishes the students to have, “R” is about revision, “E” is about self-evaluation, “T” is about tailoring the curriculum to each student, and “O” is about organization. This method is very important in making students successful and effective learners in the classroom. This will be very important in my classroom, especially, because this method helps me to understand how I can make differentiated instruction work in my classroom.

Courtney
This chapter directly relates to what we are working on in class at the moment so I found i to be very useful. This chapter really gave me a better understanding of what we are doing and why. To begin with the essentials question in creating understanding are very important because they lead to smaller or larger areas of information that can be explored within a subject. Under the six facets of learning I really liked the example it showed of brainstorming for the six facets of learning. They were simple questions, but can be used to expand into a larger topic and lesson. Then came the WHERETO which is very important because it allows teachers to not only put together a lesson but as they are doing it makes them realize what the students will learn from it and how to go about doing that learning. This chapter helped me to "pull it all together" as one of the sub titles in the chapter states.

Sara
Students need to start learning to UNDERSTAND the content, not just memorize the content, and this starts with the teacher. A teacher is responsible for presenting the material in such a way that encourages deeper exploration and questioning. I think it is clever to think that teachers are ‘uncovering’ the content rather then covering for it is true; teachers are responsible for making the content concepts accessible to the students. One way of doing this is using essential questions, questions that encourage MORE questions and deeper thinking that ultimately leads to a deeper understanding. These questions are open ended with no right or wrong answer. Teachers also can use the six facets of understanding to allow students to access content in a multitude of ways. The facets are tools for diversified instruction. I always enjoyed the open-ended questions which I know are essential questions now. They intrigued me and made me want to delve deeper into the topic at hand, which is precisely the point of them! I will also look for the ‘hook’ to get the students intrigued with the task at hand; I wish my teachers in high school had done the same for me.

Megan
This chapter talked about how to make sure students understand the material you’re teaching. Today teachers cram a lot of information into one class and don’t adequately check for students understanding. Teachers don’t do this on purpose. They cram in information because they have standards, learning results, standardized tests, etc that students need to meet. As for not checking students understanding, I think that has more to do with the fact that some teachers don’t know how to appropriately assess student’s understandings. It’s frustrating me because we have adopted this idea that we can learn everything we need to learn if we just go over basics. In health you can’t just go over the basics. You need to move from the shallow waters to the deep waters if you’re going to learn anything that is worth learning. The chapter also talked about taking our six facets and applying them to the whereto’s. At first I though the wheretos were a huge pain and inconvenience but as I started to write my lessons I realized how important they were in keeping me on track and making sure the students learned what they needed to. After I wrote the first whereto everything clicked and the 2nd came so much easier. I feel like wheretos could easily become part of my routine when I start teaching.

Jen P.
On page 110 of chapter seven, the authors just list a bunch of teaching methods, including, “research projects, problem solving, concept attainment, [and] simulations.” There were more, some of which I did not know what they were. The great thing about this chapter is that it really prompts a teacher-to-be to go search and really dig to find out more about education on one’s own. I plan on researching concept attainment as soon as I am done writing this. I also appreciate the essential questions about history on page 113, which include, “Whose ‘story’ is it?” I might use this in my classroom as a one minute paper, because it really gets students to start thinking like historians. Another essential questions from the text is, “What can we learn from the past?” This questions is great because it is one I find myself asking more often than not. Why do we learn about history? Why bother? I have passion for it, but why should my students? I may know some great answers, but it would be so much better if I had my students come up with the answers to why they themselves feel that history is important. Finally, page 15 once again mentions “wait time” and how important it is. I have already learned how crucial wait time can be, not only so students get time to think, but also so that students who are over powered by others who are quick to answer get a chance instead. I hope I am the kind of teacher who implements wait time all of the time.




 In this chapter, Tomlinson and McTighe explain the idea that teachers should not aim to "cover" material, but should instead "uncover" material by provoking student inquiry, understanding, and meaning of big ideas. I really liked the analogy relating "uncovering" material to an iceberg. With an iceberg, only a small amount is visible above the waters surface, but the bulk of the iceberg lies below the surface. With teaching, "the most powerful 'big ideas' of content areas reside below the surface of basic facts and skills" (110). Teaching should not be about teaching the basics (or what is presented on the surface), but instead delving a little deeper to engage students in finding meaning from bigger ideas.

Stephanie L.
I swear these chapter titles just keep getting longer and longer. Anywho, chapter 7 of UbD/DI is pretty awesome. It breaks down part of Stage 1 and part of Stage 3 a little bit more. I really like how it breaks down some common subjects and provides examples of essential questions. It is so helpful to see so many different examples in one place. When we first started working on Stage 1, I feel like we didn't have much to go by and my questions were just kind of pulled out of nowhere. It was hard to tell if my questions were too vague or too specific, or just plain awful. It's nice to have something else to compare it to. There is also some great stuff on the WHERETO's for Stage 3. The best way to retain information is to explore many different variations of the same material. By combining our packet handouts with what we read in these books, it becomes easier for us to wrap our brains around the material. This technique of multiple sources is something to keep in mind for the future.

Chapter 7 – Teaching for Understanding in Academically Diverse Classrooms

Chapter 7 focuses on understanding in relation to memorization and the idea that we should be teaching toward understanding not just memorization. The authors stress that understanding involves active engagement while memorization is merely drills and practice. If teachers active engage their students, students will reach an in-depth understanding of the material. Teaching for understanding requires teachers to “uncover” the content in-depth so that the students do not merely have a shallow introduction. To “uncover” the content completely, the authors suggest focusing on essential questions, building the unit on the six facets of understanding, and develop the lesson based on the WHERETO framework. WHERETO is a helpful acronym for a set of principles that teachers can use when they are developing a plan for teaching all students for understanding.

John
I agree with the point that this chapter makes about understanding rather than memorization. I speak from experience when I say that the "flash cards" system of learning doesn't fly. You need some way to keep the info in your head, because you know you need it for something other than passing a test. My introduction to Stage 1 and the WHERETOs was confusing because of its abstractness at first, but now, having read this, I know just why the model is used. Not only does the use of WHERETO help the teacher understand why they are designing their lessons, but the lessons themselves become designed to teach the students the real meaning behind learning the information, not merely for a weekend but for life.