What is UbD? The Understanding by Design® framework (UbDTM framework) offers a planning process and structure to guide curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Its two key ideas are contained in the title: 1) focus on teaching and assessing for understanding and learning transfer, and 2) design curriculum “backward” from those ends.
UbD in a Nutshell Stage 1: Desired Results What long-term transfer goals are targeted? What meanings should students make in order to arrive at important understandings? What essential questions will students explore? What knowledge and skill will students acquire? What established goals/standards are targeted?
Stage 2: Evidence What performances and products will reveal evidence of meaning-making and transfer? By what criteria will performance be assessed, in light of Stage 1 desired results? What additional evidence will be collected for all Stage 1 desired results? Are the assessments aligned to all Stage 1 elements? Stage 3: Learning Plan What activities, experiences, and lessons will lead to achievement of the desired results and success at the assessments? How will the learning plan help students with acquisition, meaning-making, and transfer? How will the unit be sequenced and differentiated to optimize achievement for all learners? How will progress be monitored? Are the learning events in Stage 3 aligned with Stage 1 goals and Stage 2 assessments?
The Seven Tenets of the UbD Framework 1. Learning is enhanced when teachers think purpose- fully about curricular planning. The UbD framework helps this process without offering a rigid process or prescriptive recipe.
2.The UbD framework helps to focus curriculum and teaching on the development and deepening of student understand- ing and transfer of learning (i.e., the ability to effectively use content knowledge and skill).
3. Understanding is revealed when students autonomously make sense of and transfer their learning through authentic performance. Six facets of understanding—the capacity to explain, interpret, apply, shift perspective, empathize, and self-assess—can serve as indicators of understanding.
4. Effective curriculum is planned backward from long-term, desired results through a three-stage design process (Desired Results, Evidence, and Learning Plan). This process helps avoid the common problems of treating the textbook as the curriculum rather than a resource, and activity-oriented teaching in which no clear priorities and purposes are apparent.
5. Teachers are coaches of understanding, not mere pur- veyors of content knowledge, skill, or activity. They focus on ensuring that learning happens, not just teaching (and assuming that what was taught was learned); they always aim and check for successful meaning making and transfer by the learner.
6. Regularly reviewing units and curriculum against design standards enhances curricular quality and effectiveness, and provides engaging and professional discussions.
7. The UbD framework reflects a continual improvement approach to student achievement and teacher craft. The results of our designs—student performance—inform needed adjustments in curriculum as well as instruction so that student learning is maximized.
Source: Adapted from Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2011). The Understanding by Design guide to creating high-quality units.