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Understanding by Design
What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today s high-stakes, standards-based environment?
Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum.
Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition, offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.
370 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1998
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December 2, 2015
This book should be required reading for educators at all levels. Like all great ideas, Understanding by Design presents a process that seems like common sense, is surprisingly difficult to implement properly, but could have astounding results. The premise behind Understanding by Design is that learning doesn't happen by accident, or merely by hard work on the part of students and teachers, but from the deliberate mastery of skills in pursuit of hard questions. Understanding by Design doesn't require much more work on the part of teachers than other approaches, but requires great courage and clarity in describing what is being learned, and why.
UbD centers around understanding, and the idea that when students really get something, they're able to perform effectively with knowledge and wisely transfer what they've learned across domains, rather than simply reciting facts or plugging through the steps of an algorithm. "Understanding" is a slippery phrase that is somewhat unfashionable. For example it's not in the original 1956 Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and is relegated to a basic level in subsequent revisions, but the word serves better than any other to mark the difference between someone who gets it, and someone who has not yet. The common enemies of understanding are 'coverage without context', textbook driven learning akin to reading the encyclopedia A-Z, and 'activities without purpose', hands-on activities that do not connect back to a larger point. Rather, the goal is to help students uncover Big Questions for themselves; the eternal scholarly and humanistic debates that link back to individual life experience and mastery over specialized skills.
Desired understanding must be linked to a proper assessment of that understanding. Here, Wiggins and McTighe make their single strongest pedagogic claim, that understanding can only truly be measured by authentic performance-based tasks, typically complex and realistic and built around creating reasoned and supported answers, so that a student may be successfully proven to have learned something. Assessment is a also a continuous process, and UbD recommends a continuous feedback loop of practice and evaluation, as well as 'one-minute essays' at the close of class about what students have learned and what they are confused about. The book supports realistic assessment over teaching to the test with a survey of major research that shows that better performing countries have realistic problem-based assessment, and that this method when used in America, leads to improvements in all schools, with the greatest improvements in deprived under-performing schools.
The final step, planning for learning, connects understandings and assessments to the daily practice of what is done in the classroom. This section is the least developed, introducing the WHERETO heuristic, but mostly leaving it up to educators to decided what in their box of tools is appropriate for the situation. It's a fair trade-off, given that they need to supply advice for teachers in every topic from K-16, but it annoyed me that just when we're about to get our hands dirty, the book backs off to a level of abstraction.
Good teachers will know everything in this book intuitively. Hesitant, or less well-prepared teachers (ahem, junior faculty) will benefit from having some wise words to justify what they know is right. Organizations will benefit from a common plan and language for building up binders full of good classes. This is a wonderfully crafted, action-oriented, theoretically grounded, guide for creating classes that matter, rather than classes that merely have to be completed. If you're going to read one book about teaching and curriculum make it Understanding by Design.
UbD centers around understanding, and the idea that when students really get something, they're able to perform effectively with knowledge and wisely transfer what they've learned across domains, rather than simply reciting facts or plugging through the steps of an algorithm. "Understanding" is a slippery phrase that is somewhat unfashionable. For example it's not in the original 1956 Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and is relegated to a basic level in subsequent revisions, but the word serves better than any other to mark the difference between someone who gets it, and someone who has not yet. The common enemies of understanding are 'coverage without context', textbook driven learning akin to reading the encyclopedia A-Z, and 'activities without purpose', hands-on activities that do not connect back to a larger point. Rather, the goal is to help students uncover Big Questions for themselves; the eternal scholarly and humanistic debates that link back to individual life experience and mastery over specialized skills.
Desired understanding must be linked to a proper assessment of that understanding. Here, Wiggins and McTighe make their single strongest pedagogic claim, that understanding can only truly be measured by authentic performance-based tasks, typically complex and realistic and built around creating reasoned and supported answers, so that a student may be successfully proven to have learned something. Assessment is a also a continuous process, and UbD recommends a continuous feedback loop of practice and evaluation, as well as 'one-minute essays' at the close of class about what students have learned and what they are confused about. The book supports realistic assessment over teaching to the test with a survey of major research that shows that better performing countries have realistic problem-based assessment, and that this method when used in America, leads to improvements in all schools, with the greatest improvements in deprived under-performing schools.
The final step, planning for learning, connects understandings and assessments to the daily practice of what is done in the classroom. This section is the least developed, introducing the WHERETO heuristic, but mostly leaving it up to educators to decided what in their box of tools is appropriate for the situation. It's a fair trade-off, given that they need to supply advice for teachers in every topic from K-16, but it annoyed me that just when we're about to get our hands dirty, the book backs off to a level of abstraction.
Good teachers will know everything in this book intuitively. Hesitant, or less well-prepared teachers (ahem, junior faculty) will benefit from having some wise words to justify what they know is right. Organizations will benefit from a common plan and language for building up binders full of good classes. This is a wonderfully crafted, action-oriented, theoretically grounded, guide for creating classes that matter, rather than classes that merely have to be completed. If you're going to read one book about teaching and curriculum make it Understanding by Design.
October 2, 2012
As a rule, if I review a book, I read every word of the book. There have been a few exceptions (this brings the total up to 4, I believe...)
There was a lot of good content in this one. The concept is pretty solid, and I think most teachers are using Backward Design by now. I remember learning about it in my undergrad methods courses, but it wasn't nearly as in depth as it was here.
Basically, as the title implies - you start with what you want kids to know, and develop the curriculum from there. It's always nice to have a little direction, right?
This idea is generally accepted when it comes to teaching, best practice, educational theory, etc... unless we're talking about the standardized tests which mean so much these days. In that case, you have no idea what's going to be on the test and try your best to guess which standards are going to appear this year.
"But," I hear you arguing, "Isn't the test based on the standards? Why not just teach those?"
Ahhhh... you obviously haven't been in a classroom, or not a 7th grade social studies classroom - with standards from prehistory to present. Any fact, colony, religion, government, country, etc... from Africa, Asia, or Oceania... fair game. The state has all that to pull from, and I've still seen questions that weren't from our standards on there... for example, they might ask for the name of a country in the Western Hemisphere.
But I digress. The book is good. I didn't read every word, because a lot of it was very repetitive and used specific examples.
At any rate, new teachers are starting with Backward Design.Old Seasoned teachers are using Backward Design due to 20-40 years of trial and error: they know the direction they want to go because they've been there a thousand times.
There was a lot of good content in this one. The concept is pretty solid, and I think most teachers are using Backward Design by now. I remember learning about it in my undergrad methods courses, but it wasn't nearly as in depth as it was here.
Basically, as the title implies - you start with what you want kids to know, and develop the curriculum from there. It's always nice to have a little direction, right?
This idea is generally accepted when it comes to teaching, best practice, educational theory, etc... unless we're talking about the standardized tests which mean so much these days. In that case, you have no idea what's going to be on the test and try your best to guess which standards are going to appear this year.
"But," I hear you arguing, "Isn't the test based on the standards? Why not just teach those?"
Ahhhh... you obviously haven't been in a classroom, or not a 7th grade social studies classroom - with standards from prehistory to present. Any fact, colony, religion, government, country, etc... from Africa, Asia, or Oceania... fair game. The state has all that to pull from, and I've still seen questions that weren't from our standards on there... for example, they might ask for the name of a country in the Western Hemisphere.
But I digress. The book is good. I didn't read every word, because a lot of it was very repetitive and used specific examples.
At any rate, new teachers are starting with Backward Design.
April 13, 2013
Understanding by Design is a technical publication for building curriculum using the backward design process. This book helps instructors support their work by implementing Essential Questions so that a course can be built around the end result and focused on understanding rather than milestones and tasks. It is a pretty basic lesson planning guide – almost a 101 for teachers of anything. It lacks a few fundamental ideas, such as using taxonomy as a basis for questioning, but I think that the book's primary focus is on building of courses, lessons, and units rather than pedagogical technique.
There are a few things I like about it – it teaches the concepts and also manages to include applicable strategies and forms that will help the instructor build their unit. It is also well written. Some things I don't like is that it is unnecessarily wordy in many places, and it contains many useless graphics that illustrate ideas that are not really difficult for anyone to grasp. One final note is that the author uses unnecessary humor at times that I think really just adds to the wordiness of some topics that are relatively simple to grasp.
There are a few things I like about it – it teaches the concepts and also manages to include applicable strategies and forms that will help the instructor build their unit. It is also well written. Some things I don't like is that it is unnecessarily wordy in many places, and it contains many useless graphics that illustrate ideas that are not really difficult for anyone to grasp. One final note is that the author uses unnecessary humor at times that I think really just adds to the wordiness of some topics that are relatively simple to grasp.
June 21, 2022
There are at least two ways to teach: (a) gather a bunch of fun activities related to a topic, or (b) identify the big questions you want students to consider and strategies for responding to those questions.
Understanding by Design strongly argues in favor of the latter option (backward design). UbD describes a set of strategies useful for university students and first graders, science classes and physical education. Wiggins and McTighe include a surprisingly wise range of questions and activities for answering them, which left me thinking that each example illustrated their backgrounds. Obviously, impossible.
Wiggins and McTighe build a multifaceted kid of understanding in students, including the abilities to explain, interpret, apply, perceive diverse perspectives, empathize, and develop self-knowledge. “Understanding” sometimes has a bad reputation, but not in their use of it. For Wiggins and McTighe, understanding is not vague and wishy-washy, but complicated and multifaceted, with the depth to be used in different contexts. It includes the abilities to explain, interpret, apply, perceive diverse perspectives, empathize, and develop self-knowledge.
[s]ometimes understanding requires detachment; at other times it requires heartfelt solidarity with other people or ideas. Sometimes we think of understanding as highly theoretical, at other times as something revealed in effective real-world application. Sometimes we think of it as dispassionate critical analysis, at other times as empathetic response. Sometimes we think of it as dependent upon direct experience, at other times as something gained through detached reflection. (p. 85)
I’ve been taking a fairly intensive faculty development course over the last month, but felt that my questions about objectives weren’t sufficiently addressed within the course. I’ve meant to read UbD for several years. I wish I’d read this beforehand. I’m glad I read it, even afterwards.
Understanding by Design strongly argues in favor of the latter option (backward design). UbD describes a set of strategies useful for university students and first graders, science classes and physical education. Wiggins and McTighe include a surprisingly wise range of questions and activities for answering them, which left me thinking that each example illustrated their backgrounds. Obviously, impossible.
Wiggins and McTighe build a multifaceted kid of understanding in students, including the abilities to explain, interpret, apply, perceive diverse perspectives, empathize, and develop self-knowledge. “Understanding” sometimes has a bad reputation, but not in their use of it. For Wiggins and McTighe, understanding is not vague and wishy-washy, but complicated and multifaceted, with the depth to be used in different contexts. It includes the abilities to explain, interpret, apply, perceive diverse perspectives, empathize, and develop self-knowledge.
[s]ometimes understanding requires detachment; at other times it requires heartfelt solidarity with other people or ideas. Sometimes we think of understanding as highly theoretical, at other times as something revealed in effective real-world application. Sometimes we think of it as dispassionate critical analysis, at other times as empathetic response. Sometimes we think of it as dependent upon direct experience, at other times as something gained through detached reflection. (p. 85)
I’ve been taking a fairly intensive faculty development course over the last month, but felt that my questions about objectives weren’t sufficiently addressed within the course. I’ve meant to read UbD for several years. I wish I’d read this beforehand. I’m glad I read it, even afterwards.
July 14, 2021
All right. What did I think of this book that I will have to teach beginning in August?
It was okay?
I am most likely going to ramble a bit, I apologize in advance.
The premise and main message of the book is good. Basically it's advocating that all teachers purposefully design their units and curriculum around the premise that students should understand the big ideas undergirding the content of the course, rather than covering a certain amount of information. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure why this even needed to be written, isn't that common sense? Alas, I think that this book was written as a response to American public school education, and I, having never attended an American public school, or indeed any public school, have never experienced the kind of teaching the book excoriates, 'coverage', where you march through a textbook and memorize facts and never engage with the wheretoes and the whyfores of those facts. I'm thinking back to both my homeschool classes and my boarding school classes...yes, I attended a boarding school, it makes me sound so snobby or 19th century...but one, I lived close enough to not have to board, as did most of the students, and two, there's not many other options in Ecuador, if you want to get a decent education...Anyway. I can't remember a class where we didn't engage with underlying ideas. Maybe not all of the underlying ideas that the book talks about, in all subject areas, but what educational system could? At the very least home-schooling successfully instilled in me the ability of autonomous learning, being self-motivated, and seeking after learning for the pleasure of it. Apparently that's the holy grail of this book, and one of the goals of this curriculum design framework.
The other main idea of the book is that a curriculum should be designed backwards. That you should clearly delineate the goal of what you want the students to learn, apply or perform, then build the curriculum towards that goal: designing scaffolding, activities, assignments and rubrics that all build to that goal, rather than doing activities for the sake of activities that don't really have any bearing on your stated goal. Again...I'm not entirely certain why that needed to be written. Isn't that common sense? Apparently not. Seriously, what is taught in education classes at the college level? Is the reason that I find this ludicrous because I skipped the undergrad education courses and went straight to the graduate level? Or is it because I went for a TESOL degree and you kind of have to teach with specific language goals in mind if you want to have any success? Or is it because I was forced to teach in a coverage aspect at my first job and was excessively frustrated by it because it obviously didn't work, therefore there must be a better way? Or is it that I just gained this knowledge implicitly because of being homeschooled? I don't know.
Come to think of it though, the statistic classes that I have taken have all followed the cardinal sins of this book. They march through a bunch of discrete skills and you never learn how to apply it to messy real life data, you just have to sort of infer it. This works for things like means, and medians, and even standard deviations, but once you get into inferential statistics...how are you supposed to know which test you are supposed to use, on which data set, to get which prediction? I haven't the foggiest most of the time. Can I even use these tests with my data as it is not normally distributed?
The other cardinal sin this book mentions is that students walk away being able to quote facts but not being able to articulate the underlying ideas behind those facts. That is true, and I think exacerbated by internet culture. When people are arguing on the internet, they post a paper, or an article backing up their point...but they never make a point. They're like 'you're wrong' paper linked. That doesn't actually demonstrate that I am wrong, and even less does it demonstrate that you are right. It demonstrates that you lack the ability to make your own argument. It's particularly frustrating because so often they depend on the headline or the abstract and assume that it says what they want it to say, but when you read the actual article it disproves their point. This has happened to me, multiple times. It makes me bemoan the problems with literacy in the western world. Something is obviously not working in how we teach argumentation skills and reading skills. That or humans are just inherently lazy and can't be bothered to actually pursue knowledge and take the easiest route.
This book did have really good pointers and a couple of good personal/professional development tools. Self-assessment of lessons and units is critical, and is often not done. Repetition of lessons and units across years is critical, and is often not done. It took me about five years to get my Freshman English curriculum really refined and useful at my last university. The first time you teach a class: it's crap. Sorry. Just facts. You don't really have a lot of time to plan, you are inundated with meetings, classes, grading, and you are struggling to keep your head above the water. You do your best to design a class that meets the needs of your students, but you don't really have enough experience to even know what the needs of your particular demographic of students are. The first year is all experimentation, you try things, they don't work, you try other things that do, and you save those things and then reincorporate them into next year. Slowly, each year, things get better and more streamlined, until finally you have a product that is actually useful. Teaching, lesson planning and curriculum design is a process and inherently takes time and that is a point that this book was careful to make and that needs to be made. I have seen teachers avoid this process. They teach each unit once, even though they have the same class, they get bored so they never review or edit what they teach and instead go on to something different each year. One, that's a ton of extra work, two, that treats every year like the first year, and three, their curriculum design never really improves. I've seen the other extreme, where a teacher does use the same unit every year, and never changes it...that blows my mind. So I can see why this book felt the need to address that topic, that's obviously a problem and needs to be corrected.
On the other hand. I didn't like the book! I didn't like the writers! I felt that there was way too much unnecessary jargon. I felt that they are too insistent on following their "WHERETO" acronym...which I found obtuse and impossible to remember, let alone implement. I got very sick of their assumptions of things as facts...even as they advocated questioning everything! Gah! It's the postmodern Achilles heel: "Question everything: except postmodernism." "The meaning of a text is what you make of it, not necessarily what the author meant to convey." That's stupid. Yes, each person walks away with a subtly different take on the book that they read. My feeling that the authors of this book are sometimes pompous may not be what they intended to pass on. But that really only applies to secondary aspects of the text. If I walk away from this book with the received meaning: I should teach by covering a ton of information, I have completely missed the point of the book! They specifically acknowledge that a text's purpose is to communicate specific information in how they are constantly having 'misapprehension alerts'. Don't misunderstand what we are writing. I always wonder if they apply this to the spoken word too. It seems to me that when you take this philosophy to it's logical extreme then you are denying the ability to communicate ideas at all. Yes, in our inner mind when someone says 'cup' we all represent that word differently. Some have a mental representation of a black mug, some have a glass, some have a tea cup, some have pictures in their head, some have words, but we all agree on certain aspects, it's a container to hold liquid, that all follow the same basic shape of having sides taller than the width of the base. If we didn't all agree on this same basic meaning, communication would be impossible. If I decided to associate 'cup' with a flat piece of paper used to mark my place in a book, I would be wrong. The same is true when you string words into phrases, sentences, and texts. There is a distinct meaning you wish to convey. Some of the trimmings don't necessarily matter, or you leave up to the imagination of the reader to fill in the gaps, but the core meaning doesn't change and isn't open to interpretation, if it was language would not communicate.
So that part bothered me.
The other part that bothered me was the facets of understanding: application, empathy, explanation, interpretation, perspective and self-knowledge. I'm sorry. I don't think these are all equally important. I don't. I don't think empathy should be on the same par as application, explanation and interpretation. To be brutally honest, I don't think perspective and self-knowledge are on the same level either. Self-assessment is important, you need to be able to look and see when something isn't working and correct. I don't think seeing things from other perspectives or having empathy with those other perspectives is important in all subject areas. What is the use of looking at mathematics empathically? What is the use of looking at other perspectives in mathematics at a basic level, or even an algebraic level? What is there to be empathic about in science? In history or literature, cultural studies or linguistic studies, I get it, it's important. But what is practical about teaching different perspectives on numbers in K-12 education? Our goal should be to prepare students for living in the real world, where numbers have concrete meanings and equations have practical uses. Sure, teach them that this works because we accept a priori certain numerical relationships, but also teach them that we accept these a priori beliefs because it works in the world we live in. If in higher education they want to go on to explore other mathematical systems, go for it, but I don't think that belongs in elementary education. There's a reason it's called elementary. It's supposed to be about the basics.
I also see a problem with the over emphasis of empathy in our culture at large. We so often empathize with one person to the exclusion of the other person or people involved. In our rush to empathize with the victim of society, we forget to empathize with the needs of the other people in society. You can see this in the homeless problem we have now. We empathize with people who have mental illness and don't want to put them in homes, because we value self-determination and think that everyone should have it. But, when the mentally ill take over public parks and sidewalks because of this value, now those who have the right to use those parks and sidewalks in safety cannot because they are occupied by those who have a tenuous grasp on reality and behave in unpredictable and often dangerous ways. Our empathy with one group has overridden our empathy for another. This is a constant problem in our society today, because we prioritize certain groups over others, because of a perceived lack of power, or of historical wrongs done against that group. If empathy were applied to every group equally it would be fine, but we are hierarchical creatures, even when we claim not to be, we empathize with certain groups and exclude others. We need to empathize with the feelings of the native Americans as their land was taken from them. Yes, we do. But we also need to empathize with the feelings of the settlers. They were not inhuman, they had motivations, understandable ones, for what they did. It's not this group is wholly good and put upon, and this group is wholly evil and predatory, but so often in the name of empathy this is what ends up being taught. We are reactionary, we go from one extreme to the other. From manifest destiny to colonization is inherently evil. All we are doing is reacting and swinging to the opposite extreme.
Anyway. There were good aspects in the book. There were aspects I didn't like. One thing that I shall COMPLETELY take to heart is that it says that textbooks are not a syllabus, they are a resource, and sections should be pulled out because they meet your goals, not because you feel it necessary to cover all the information in them. I shall take this to heart by not teaching everything in this book, and choosing the chapters that I think are most relevant to the goal of helping students learn to create a curriculum that is well-designed. I'm not sure they meant it to be applied to their book, but it shall be.
It was okay?
I am most likely going to ramble a bit, I apologize in advance.
The premise and main message of the book is good. Basically it's advocating that all teachers purposefully design their units and curriculum around the premise that students should understand the big ideas undergirding the content of the course, rather than covering a certain amount of information. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure why this even needed to be written, isn't that common sense? Alas, I think that this book was written as a response to American public school education, and I, having never attended an American public school, or indeed any public school, have never experienced the kind of teaching the book excoriates, 'coverage', where you march through a textbook and memorize facts and never engage with the wheretoes and the whyfores of those facts. I'm thinking back to both my homeschool classes and my boarding school classes...yes, I attended a boarding school, it makes me sound so snobby or 19th century...but one, I lived close enough to not have to board, as did most of the students, and two, there's not many other options in Ecuador, if you want to get a decent education...Anyway. I can't remember a class where we didn't engage with underlying ideas. Maybe not all of the underlying ideas that the book talks about, in all subject areas, but what educational system could? At the very least home-schooling successfully instilled in me the ability of autonomous learning, being self-motivated, and seeking after learning for the pleasure of it. Apparently that's the holy grail of this book, and one of the goals of this curriculum design framework.
The other main idea of the book is that a curriculum should be designed backwards. That you should clearly delineate the goal of what you want the students to learn, apply or perform, then build the curriculum towards that goal: designing scaffolding, activities, assignments and rubrics that all build to that goal, rather than doing activities for the sake of activities that don't really have any bearing on your stated goal. Again...I'm not entirely certain why that needed to be written. Isn't that common sense? Apparently not. Seriously, what is taught in education classes at the college level? Is the reason that I find this ludicrous because I skipped the undergrad education courses and went straight to the graduate level? Or is it because I went for a TESOL degree and you kind of have to teach with specific language goals in mind if you want to have any success? Or is it because I was forced to teach in a coverage aspect at my first job and was excessively frustrated by it because it obviously didn't work, therefore there must be a better way? Or is it that I just gained this knowledge implicitly because of being homeschooled? I don't know.
Come to think of it though, the statistic classes that I have taken have all followed the cardinal sins of this book. They march through a bunch of discrete skills and you never learn how to apply it to messy real life data, you just have to sort of infer it. This works for things like means, and medians, and even standard deviations, but once you get into inferential statistics...how are you supposed to know which test you are supposed to use, on which data set, to get which prediction? I haven't the foggiest most of the time. Can I even use these tests with my data as it is not normally distributed?
The other cardinal sin this book mentions is that students walk away being able to quote facts but not being able to articulate the underlying ideas behind those facts. That is true, and I think exacerbated by internet culture. When people are arguing on the internet, they post a paper, or an article backing up their point...but they never make a point. They're like 'you're wrong' paper linked. That doesn't actually demonstrate that I am wrong, and even less does it demonstrate that you are right. It demonstrates that you lack the ability to make your own argument. It's particularly frustrating because so often they depend on the headline or the abstract and assume that it says what they want it to say, but when you read the actual article it disproves their point. This has happened to me, multiple times. It makes me bemoan the problems with literacy in the western world. Something is obviously not working in how we teach argumentation skills and reading skills. That or humans are just inherently lazy and can't be bothered to actually pursue knowledge and take the easiest route.
This book did have really good pointers and a couple of good personal/professional development tools. Self-assessment of lessons and units is critical, and is often not done. Repetition of lessons and units across years is critical, and is often not done. It took me about five years to get my Freshman English curriculum really refined and useful at my last university. The first time you teach a class: it's crap. Sorry. Just facts. You don't really have a lot of time to plan, you are inundated with meetings, classes, grading, and you are struggling to keep your head above the water. You do your best to design a class that meets the needs of your students, but you don't really have enough experience to even know what the needs of your particular demographic of students are. The first year is all experimentation, you try things, they don't work, you try other things that do, and you save those things and then reincorporate them into next year. Slowly, each year, things get better and more streamlined, until finally you have a product that is actually useful. Teaching, lesson planning and curriculum design is a process and inherently takes time and that is a point that this book was careful to make and that needs to be made. I have seen teachers avoid this process. They teach each unit once, even though they have the same class, they get bored so they never review or edit what they teach and instead go on to something different each year. One, that's a ton of extra work, two, that treats every year like the first year, and three, their curriculum design never really improves. I've seen the other extreme, where a teacher does use the same unit every year, and never changes it...that blows my mind. So I can see why this book felt the need to address that topic, that's obviously a problem and needs to be corrected.
On the other hand. I didn't like the book! I didn't like the writers! I felt that there was way too much unnecessary jargon. I felt that they are too insistent on following their "WHERETO" acronym...which I found obtuse and impossible to remember, let alone implement. I got very sick of their assumptions of things as facts...even as they advocated questioning everything! Gah! It's the postmodern Achilles heel: "Question everything: except postmodernism." "The meaning of a text is what you make of it, not necessarily what the author meant to convey." That's stupid. Yes, each person walks away with a subtly different take on the book that they read. My feeling that the authors of this book are sometimes pompous may not be what they intended to pass on. But that really only applies to secondary aspects of the text. If I walk away from this book with the received meaning: I should teach by covering a ton of information, I have completely missed the point of the book! They specifically acknowledge that a text's purpose is to communicate specific information in how they are constantly having 'misapprehension alerts'. Don't misunderstand what we are writing. I always wonder if they apply this to the spoken word too. It seems to me that when you take this philosophy to it's logical extreme then you are denying the ability to communicate ideas at all. Yes, in our inner mind when someone says 'cup' we all represent that word differently. Some have a mental representation of a black mug, some have a glass, some have a tea cup, some have pictures in their head, some have words, but we all agree on certain aspects, it's a container to hold liquid, that all follow the same basic shape of having sides taller than the width of the base. If we didn't all agree on this same basic meaning, communication would be impossible. If I decided to associate 'cup' with a flat piece of paper used to mark my place in a book, I would be wrong. The same is true when you string words into phrases, sentences, and texts. There is a distinct meaning you wish to convey. Some of the trimmings don't necessarily matter, or you leave up to the imagination of the reader to fill in the gaps, but the core meaning doesn't change and isn't open to interpretation, if it was language would not communicate.
So that part bothered me.
The other part that bothered me was the facets of understanding: application, empathy, explanation, interpretation, perspective and self-knowledge. I'm sorry. I don't think these are all equally important. I don't. I don't think empathy should be on the same par as application, explanation and interpretation. To be brutally honest, I don't think perspective and self-knowledge are on the same level either. Self-assessment is important, you need to be able to look and see when something isn't working and correct. I don't think seeing things from other perspectives or having empathy with those other perspectives is important in all subject areas. What is the use of looking at mathematics empathically? What is the use of looking at other perspectives in mathematics at a basic level, or even an algebraic level? What is there to be empathic about in science? In history or literature, cultural studies or linguistic studies, I get it, it's important. But what is practical about teaching different perspectives on numbers in K-12 education? Our goal should be to prepare students for living in the real world, where numbers have concrete meanings and equations have practical uses. Sure, teach them that this works because we accept a priori certain numerical relationships, but also teach them that we accept these a priori beliefs because it works in the world we live in. If in higher education they want to go on to explore other mathematical systems, go for it, but I don't think that belongs in elementary education. There's a reason it's called elementary. It's supposed to be about the basics.
I also see a problem with the over emphasis of empathy in our culture at large. We so often empathize with one person to the exclusion of the other person or people involved. In our rush to empathize with the victim of society, we forget to empathize with the needs of the other people in society. You can see this in the homeless problem we have now. We empathize with people who have mental illness and don't want to put them in homes, because we value self-determination and think that everyone should have it. But, when the mentally ill take over public parks and sidewalks because of this value, now those who have the right to use those parks and sidewalks in safety cannot because they are occupied by those who have a tenuous grasp on reality and behave in unpredictable and often dangerous ways. Our empathy with one group has overridden our empathy for another. This is a constant problem in our society today, because we prioritize certain groups over others, because of a perceived lack of power, or of historical wrongs done against that group. If empathy were applied to every group equally it would be fine, but we are hierarchical creatures, even when we claim not to be, we empathize with certain groups and exclude others. We need to empathize with the feelings of the native Americans as their land was taken from them. Yes, we do. But we also need to empathize with the feelings of the settlers. They were not inhuman, they had motivations, understandable ones, for what they did. It's not this group is wholly good and put upon, and this group is wholly evil and predatory, but so often in the name of empathy this is what ends up being taught. We are reactionary, we go from one extreme to the other. From manifest destiny to colonization is inherently evil. All we are doing is reacting and swinging to the opposite extreme.
Anyway. There were good aspects in the book. There were aspects I didn't like. One thing that I shall COMPLETELY take to heart is that it says that textbooks are not a syllabus, they are a resource, and sections should be pulled out because they meet your goals, not because you feel it necessary to cover all the information in them. I shall take this to heart by not teaching everything in this book, and choosing the chapters that I think are most relevant to the goal of helping students learn to create a curriculum that is well-designed. I'm not sure they meant it to be applied to their book, but it shall be.
March 24, 2019
The book is rather helpful in terms of the pedagogy it presents. It's fairly simple (i.e., start with your desired outcomes/goals, and work "backward" from there in the formation of your curriculum). A teacher's content matters, and the "teaching" matters, but those two things mean nothing if students don't actually learn (i.e., learning > teaching). Throughout the book, the authors helpfully consider the place of Bloom's Taxonomy (and other educational spectrums) in the assignments given to students. Another overarching theme is the importance of "big ideas" and "essential questions." These are the markers we should use to assess whether or not we, as educators, have done our job.
However, its major weakness is that it is overly repetitive. I got the essence of the book in the first 100 pages (yay!?). Its length is also due to the many examples and charts/illustrations provided, which do help but make the text a bit overwhelming at times. Moreover, I don't think the authors adequately consider the unprepared learner or the unmotivated learner. It is basically assumed that the student has a great desire to learn, which is certainly not the case in secondary and elementary education.
Their answers for the "Yes, but..." questions at the end are highly unsatisfying. This book on course design will work best for those in higher education but not as much for those in secondary or elementary education because of the strict standards and content they must adhere to.
That is, the system will have to change before the teachers can change.
However, its major weakness is that it is overly repetitive. I got the essence of the book in the first 100 pages (yay!?). Its length is also due to the many examples and charts/illustrations provided, which do help but make the text a bit overwhelming at times. Moreover, I don't think the authors adequately consider the unprepared learner or the unmotivated learner. It is basically assumed that the student has a great desire to learn, which is certainly not the case in secondary and elementary education.
Their answers for the "Yes, but..." questions at the end are highly unsatisfying. This book on course design will work best for those in higher education but not as much for those in secondary or elementary education because of the strict standards and content they must adhere to.
That is, the system will have to change before the teachers can change.
Read
November 21, 2008Wiggins offers ideas for designing curriculum to engage students in exploring and deepening their understanding of important ideas, and creating assessments that reveal the extent of their understanding. This is not a step-by-step guide on how to design a course, but rather a conceptual framework and design process. It offers a way of thinking about your course, but does not offer individual lesson plans.
I read the book at the same time I was putting together my 309K proposal, and found it very helpful. The author advocates creating your class through a backward design process:
1) Identify the results -- what do you want student to know/understand/be able to do, at the end of your course?
2) Determine what constitutes acceptable evidence that your students have achieved the desired outcome
3) Plan learning experiences and instruction according to your end goals
The author also discusses getting to the essential questions that frame your course. As a way to develop this framework, he poses the question,"If the textbook contains the answers, what are the questions?"
Overall, for the instructor faced with creating their first course proposal, this book is a good starting place.
I read the book at the same time I was putting together my 309K proposal, and found it very helpful. The author advocates creating your class through a backward design process:
1) Identify the results -- what do you want student to know/understand/be able to do, at the end of your course?
2) Determine what constitutes acceptable evidence that your students have achieved the desired outcome
3) Plan learning experiences and instruction according to your end goals
The author also discusses getting to the essential questions that frame your course. As a way to develop this framework, he poses the question,"If the textbook contains the answers, what are the questions?"
Overall, for the instructor faced with creating their first course proposal, this book is a good starting place.
January 3, 2015
This book is tough to get through but a must read for anybody who wants to be a leader of teachers. The concepts involved in backward design can be used for everything from unit planning to curriculum writing to professional development. Unfortunately not enough administrators have read this book. I absolutely loved it.
August 13, 2017
Decent info. Terribly repetitive.
March 7, 2017
A group of librarian co-workers and I took this on as a book group over a couple of quarters.
It seems like an important read for any teacher, especially librarians who are new to the role of classroom educator or lack training in teaching.
The authors explain, in what I felt to be overly dense chapters, the concept that courses should be designed with the end goal in sight (backward design) and should focus on big ideas and essential questions to facilitate true understanding of the subject in learners.
Teachers should avoid the "twin sins" of activity-based design, in which the focus is on planning fun activities that may or may not promote exploration of big ideas, or coverage-based design, in which the maximum amount of material is covered at all costs regardless of whether the sequence makes sense or the material actually points to any greater understanding.
If anything, the book enlightened me about my own educational history and attitudes toward learning new things as well as about lesson planning and methods.
It also helped me realize that as librarians, even if we don't always teach credit courses, the concepts in UbD can help us to help classroom instructors in other disciplines by considering how we design things like handouts, presentations, or online subject guides.
It seems like an important read for any teacher, especially librarians who are new to the role of classroom educator or lack training in teaching.
The authors explain, in what I felt to be overly dense chapters, the concept that courses should be designed with the end goal in sight (backward design) and should focus on big ideas and essential questions to facilitate true understanding of the subject in learners.
Teachers should avoid the "twin sins" of activity-based design, in which the focus is on planning fun activities that may or may not promote exploration of big ideas, or coverage-based design, in which the maximum amount of material is covered at all costs regardless of whether the sequence makes sense or the material actually points to any greater understanding.
If anything, the book enlightened me about my own educational history and attitudes toward learning new things as well as about lesson planning and methods.
It also helped me realize that as librarians, even if we don't always teach credit courses, the concepts in UbD can help us to help classroom instructors in other disciplines by considering how we design things like handouts, presentations, or online subject guides.
July 5, 2020
Understanding by Design is one of those books that shouldn't need to exist. Its lessons about teaching are so fundamental, so critical, and, in some ways, so obvious, that it's remarkable that Understanding needs to be a book at all.
For instance, at its core, Understanding is a plea that instructors design their pedagogical approaches backwards, beginning the the learning objectives, passing backwards through careful reflection on what successful attainment of those goals would look like (i.e., evaluation), and only finally turning to the design of the content delivery itself. Likewise, Understanding explores different 'facets' of learning (explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge) that need to be part of education, providing a complementary exploration to learning à-la-Bloom's Taxonomy that reveals the multimodal and multilayered ways we need to approach classroom settings. These points are important, true, and well-articulated... even if I wish that they didn't need to be written out in full, in an ideal world where educators took them seriously and were provided with meaningful mentorship.
The section on 'uncoverage' is similarly useful - and highly likely to appeal to sociologists and historians of science. In it, the authors argue that textbook-based approaches focusing on 'covering' material end up invoking closure much too early, tidying up stories into facts that must be learned rather than engaging students through discovery-based learning.
While the big picture lessons from the book are critical - the type of lessons that literally every educator ought to know before they're allowed into a classroom - the lessons sometimes seem a little better in the abstract than when they're actually instantiated into designs for the classroom. One problem, for instance, is that of perpetual regress: in discussions of pedagogy, you always end up 'chasing your tail' in some respects. For instance, defining 'interpretation' invariably results in assessment of the 'sophistication' of one's understanding... but 'sophistication' ends up being just as nebulous a term to try to define and pin down as 'interpretation' itself.
Likewise, in the section about assessment, the authors make an effective argument for the need to separate out assessments of 'performance' (e.g., how well do students make arguments) from assessments of the 'ideas' and 'understandings' themselves (e.g., how well do students 'get it'). But, the latter category is rather poorly defined: we aren't given much in the way of instruction in terms of how to reliably determine the quality of ideas/understandings when present in poor performances... and there's a real risk of instructors over-interpreting (e.g., reading more into) understandings as we attempt to be more charitable on this front. I love the idea in the abstract, but in practice, we need more clarity about how to really adopt this lesson.
Same goes for uncoverage. The ideas here are excellent: for example, they recommend putting students through paces in terms of oral exams that allow for probing about topics of interest and follow-up questions to assess whether kernels of insight are true or just accidental. Similarly, they explore a host of activities based on using more realistic tasks (e.g., write a letter arguing that someone adopt your position; develop a resume to join this literary quest to demonstrate your understanding of who they need on their team)... but most of these activities end up, at least to my untrained eye, making it harder to differentiate between the performance and the insights. And, I worry some about these more nebulous, complex tasks exacerbating the gaps between those of my students who have the luxury of time and home support versus those working a bunch of jobs to support their families. Many of the latter students need a lot more guidance and mentoring through processes of uncoverage, making me worry that these kinds of complex assessments measure more about the differential levels of preparedness each student had when beginning the class, versus the progress that's been made within the course.
In that sense, UbD is ultimately a book about educational reform. While its suggestions are helpful to the individual educator, it's really a manifesto about needing to approach education differently. Much of what it recommends - in the richest possible, ideal interpretations - can't be implemented in a classroom where administrators push more and more butts into seats; where there's an obsession with grades from students and admins alike; where there's such inequity in terms of preparedness when students of varying backgrounds enter the classroom. UbD calls us to return to the true purpose of education - not giving grades or printing diplomas; not about placement into certain kinds of desirable jobs or securing wealth - that is centred on expanding minds and developing critical thinking.
One minor gripe: while the content is exceptional, I have to say that the writing is only alright. For a book that subverts classical education processes, it really reads like a typical textbook, and was a little dry from time to time. But, part of its difficulty is just in the sheer volume of good content, which makes it less skim-able if you really want to get the maximum value out of it that you can.
This is a book that really ought to standard issue to new teachers and professors. It's a little tougher for the latter group, as the examples are focused nearly exclusively on the K-12 environment. But, the content within is still quite useful.
For instance, at its core, Understanding is a plea that instructors design their pedagogical approaches backwards, beginning the the learning objectives, passing backwards through careful reflection on what successful attainment of those goals would look like (i.e., evaluation), and only finally turning to the design of the content delivery itself. Likewise, Understanding explores different 'facets' of learning (explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge) that need to be part of education, providing a complementary exploration to learning à-la-Bloom's Taxonomy that reveals the multimodal and multilayered ways we need to approach classroom settings. These points are important, true, and well-articulated... even if I wish that they didn't need to be written out in full, in an ideal world where educators took them seriously and were provided with meaningful mentorship.
The section on 'uncoverage' is similarly useful - and highly likely to appeal to sociologists and historians of science. In it, the authors argue that textbook-based approaches focusing on 'covering' material end up invoking closure much too early, tidying up stories into facts that must be learned rather than engaging students through discovery-based learning.
While the big picture lessons from the book are critical - the type of lessons that literally every educator ought to know before they're allowed into a classroom - the lessons sometimes seem a little better in the abstract than when they're actually instantiated into designs for the classroom. One problem, for instance, is that of perpetual regress: in discussions of pedagogy, you always end up 'chasing your tail' in some respects. For instance, defining 'interpretation' invariably results in assessment of the 'sophistication' of one's understanding... but 'sophistication' ends up being just as nebulous a term to try to define and pin down as 'interpretation' itself.
Likewise, in the section about assessment, the authors make an effective argument for the need to separate out assessments of 'performance' (e.g., how well do students make arguments) from assessments of the 'ideas' and 'understandings' themselves (e.g., how well do students 'get it'). But, the latter category is rather poorly defined: we aren't given much in the way of instruction in terms of how to reliably determine the quality of ideas/understandings when present in poor performances... and there's a real risk of instructors over-interpreting (e.g., reading more into) understandings as we attempt to be more charitable on this front. I love the idea in the abstract, but in practice, we need more clarity about how to really adopt this lesson.
Same goes for uncoverage. The ideas here are excellent: for example, they recommend putting students through paces in terms of oral exams that allow for probing about topics of interest and follow-up questions to assess whether kernels of insight are true or just accidental. Similarly, they explore a host of activities based on using more realistic tasks (e.g., write a letter arguing that someone adopt your position; develop a resume to join this literary quest to demonstrate your understanding of who they need on their team)... but most of these activities end up, at least to my untrained eye, making it harder to differentiate between the performance and the insights. And, I worry some about these more nebulous, complex tasks exacerbating the gaps between those of my students who have the luxury of time and home support versus those working a bunch of jobs to support their families. Many of the latter students need a lot more guidance and mentoring through processes of uncoverage, making me worry that these kinds of complex assessments measure more about the differential levels of preparedness each student had when beginning the class, versus the progress that's been made within the course.
In that sense, UbD is ultimately a book about educational reform. While its suggestions are helpful to the individual educator, it's really a manifesto about needing to approach education differently. Much of what it recommends - in the richest possible, ideal interpretations - can't be implemented in a classroom where administrators push more and more butts into seats; where there's an obsession with grades from students and admins alike; where there's such inequity in terms of preparedness when students of varying backgrounds enter the classroom. UbD calls us to return to the true purpose of education - not giving grades or printing diplomas; not about placement into certain kinds of desirable jobs or securing wealth - that is centred on expanding minds and developing critical thinking.
One minor gripe: while the content is exceptional, I have to say that the writing is only alright. For a book that subverts classical education processes, it really reads like a typical textbook, and was a little dry from time to time. But, part of its difficulty is just in the sheer volume of good content, which makes it less skim-able if you really want to get the maximum value out of it that you can.
This is a book that really ought to standard issue to new teachers and professors. It's a little tougher for the latter group, as the examples are focused nearly exclusively on the K-12 environment. But, the content within is still quite useful.
Read
July 6, 2022I didn't fully read this and skimmed a couple of chapters, but having gone through the majority of it for my masters course, I'm marking as read. A lot of really helpful ideas here and I appreciate how this book taught me to consider my curriculum from different angles that ultimately made it more effective. Backwards design is hard for me because I find inspiration in art and texts and questions/conflicts rather than starting with what I want students to be able to DO or LEARN. My goal is always to help students grow in their empathy for others, their critical thinking skills, and their understanding of the world. That applies to all culture/media I chose to highlight, but this book pokes holes in my process in ways that I was encouraged by AND disagreed with. Wiggins and McTighe are very process-oriented in way that can feel like it zaps the passion or artistry out of teaching and reduces it to the most efficient, results-based methods...and I'm just not built that way. I don't think everything needs to be 100% efficient -- this feels like a capitalist/White American mindset. I care far more about my class being accessible, critical, and joy-filled than efficient.
October 7, 2021
Read for school. There was a lot about this book that I liked and plan to use moving forward, but there’s also a lot that is just not really…doable in today’s education system. But definitely a lot to think about and discuss!!
October 12, 2022
A learner-centered framework for curriculum development and unit design that builds on key insights from the science of learning.
I think it’s too bad that only folks already in the education world read this kind of stuff, when in reality it’s incredibly important for educators in other fields as well. So glad I read this book.
I think it’s too bad that only folks already in the education world read this kind of stuff, when in reality it’s incredibly important for educators in other fields as well. So glad I read this book.
July 7, 2024
A bit of a meaty read for summer vacay. But good stuff! I’ve been on the application side of this but reading the theory behind it increased my understanding and my appreciation.
May 13, 2019
I'm not really sure what to say about this book because it doesn't seem to have made much of an impact on me either way. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it either. I think I pretty much understand what it was getting at, but I don't know how helpful it will really be. And I spent a lot of time using it as a textbook (an entire semester!) to end up feeling that way. I really feel like the class I used it for was very helpful, but the book itself? I don't know. And maybe the book ended up being helpful insofar as the professor drew his material from it (and I don't feel like the class was entirely dependent on the textbook or was entirely divorced from the textbook), but that's a pretty weak statement to make. After all, I'm reviewing the book, not the class, and people who read the book probably won't have access to the class. So I don't know.
June 14, 2019
3.5
I have to give the disclaimer that I didn’t finish the book. We had it as part of PD with my high school, & I transferred to the MS for the coming year. So, I’m not sure I’ll continue on with the book.
That being said, I did see it as a good read, but not for me as much. I feel I already do these things and look at where I want my students to be and end up, & I design my instruction (& change it year to year) to fit the kids and the goals.
I think this book would be great for an intro to teaching class for undergrads or someone trying to refresh or renew.
I have to give the disclaimer that I didn’t finish the book. We had it as part of PD with my high school, & I transferred to the MS for the coming year. So, I’m not sure I’ll continue on with the book.
That being said, I did see it as a good read, but not for me as much. I feel I already do these things and look at where I want my students to be and end up, & I design my instruction (& change it year to year) to fit the kids and the goals.
I think this book would be great for an intro to teaching class for undergrads or someone trying to refresh or renew.
September 9, 2012
Interesting academic read. Backwards design is something that many people I think have been doing but not to the detail the Wiggins describes it in. I used the design for my new Catcher unit and I like were it has taken me. I feel more confident in why I am teaching what I am teaching, and that makes it easier to explain to my students. The only problem is how time consuming it can be to revamp a unit, especially during the school year. Naturally teachers do not get nearly enough time to accomplish this at work.
I definitely recommend the book and its techniques, just be prepared to put the work into improving yourself.
I definitely recommend the book and its techniques, just be prepared to put the work into improving yourself.
August 6, 2019
This book is applicable for all teachers. Before gathering our materials and figuring out what we should teach and how, teachers must first figure out the desired goals and objectives, the assessments to test these outcomes, and then finally the materials and methods for teaching. This backward design process does really make sense. My concern is how long this process would take and this book describes this theory in great detail; I think the authors could have been more straightforward so teachers could use this book with ease.
November 1, 2015
This is a solid concept, and a very thorough book that appeals to theory, reason, and practicality in promoting Understanding by Design as a way to design units. In using this book with pre-service teachers, they all complain that the design is too convoluted and complex. I wish there was a version of this book for novices to UbD and veteran teachers. I think that the "sell" gets lost in the complexity of it. However, definitely this is best practice and a good read.
July 28, 2013
I tried to read this book one summer, only got halfway through by the time school started, and have given up for now. It seems great, but I think it's better used before/during/after attending an Understanding by Design workshop or at least with a team of teachers co-planning units. It's just kind of too much to digest on your own with no support.
March 18, 2021
UbD has been critical in my development as a teacher. This books has many nuggets of value, but there are tradeoffs. Some of this book is outdated, and it is way longer than it should be. Calling it redundant is an understatement. By the end of the book, I felt like I was trudging through deep snow.
April 15, 2016
Interesting concepts and a useful planning framework, but I found large sections of this book quite tedious to read.
January 1, 2017
The process is interesting but the book is sometimes confusing and boring.
April 1, 2020
This book blew my mind with its ideas. It all seemed so obvious after reading. Some of it I actually had thought of already and it was really nice to have it confirmed.
The book featured a fantastic explanation of how knowledge differs from understanding, and placed emphasis on planning around the the core big ideas/essential questions in curricula. This last was a conclusion I had come to earlier, but this book really helped with determining what big ideas and questions to consider, and how to most logically structure a year-long curriculum around them.
The three stages of backward design are helpful for breaking down and visualizing the best way to approach the lesson planning process (p.18). They are:
1. Identify desired results.
2. Determine acceptable evidence.
3. Plan learning experiences and instruction.
The six facets of understanding are also invaluable tools to help shape planning. The authors clearly and succinctly explain how to best design for and assess each facet: explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. They also effectively analyze what a good understanding is (p. 128-129):
This is essential reading for educators.
The book featured a fantastic explanation of how knowledge differs from understanding, and placed emphasis on planning around the the core big ideas/essential questions in curricula. This last was a conclusion I had come to earlier, but this book really helped with determining what big ideas and questions to consider, and how to most logically structure a year-long curriculum around them.
The three stages of backward design are helpful for breaking down and visualizing the best way to approach the lesson planning process (p.18). They are:
1. Identify desired results.
2. Determine acceptable evidence.
3. Plan learning experiences and instruction.
The six facets of understanding are also invaluable tools to help shape planning. The authors clearly and succinctly explain how to best design for and assess each facet: explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. They also effectively analyze what a good understanding is (p. 128-129):
An understanding...
• is an important inference, drawn from the experience of experts, started as a specific and useful generalization.
• refers to transferable, big ideas having enduring value beyond a specific topic.
• involves abstract, counter-intuitive, and easily misunderstood ideas.
• is best acquired by "uncovering" and "doing" the subject (i.e. using the ideas in realistic settings and with real-world problems)
• summarizes important strategic principles in skill areas
This is essential reading for educators.
August 9, 2025
Understanding by Design is one of the most impactful education books I’ve read. Its core premise—starting with the end in mind—encourages educators to design learning experiences that help students transfer their knowledge to new contexts. Wiggins and Tighe argue that achieving this requires avoiding two common pitfalls:
1) Activity for the sake of activity, where students engage in tasks loosely related to the topic but without a clear learning goal.
2) Coverage, where teachers rush through content without giving students meaningful opportunities to engage with and apply what they’ve learned.
The foundational ideas are supported by related concepts such as essential questions, project-based learning, and constructivism. Typically, I’m skeptical of education books that claim, “You’re doing it all wrong—here’s a new system to fix everything.” However, Understanding by Design stands out because each idea is valuable on its own and can be implemented incrementally, whether in a single lesson or across an entire unit.
I read the book slowly, often pausing to highlight insights I wanted to remember. While it’s rich in theory, the authors also provide practical tools for implementation, including planning templates and examples that guide educators through the design process.
I highly recommend this book to both new and experienced teachers. It’s a thoughtful, practical resource that can genuinely improve instructional design and student learning.
1) Activity for the sake of activity, where students engage in tasks loosely related to the topic but without a clear learning goal.
2) Coverage, where teachers rush through content without giving students meaningful opportunities to engage with and apply what they’ve learned.
The foundational ideas are supported by related concepts such as essential questions, project-based learning, and constructivism. Typically, I’m skeptical of education books that claim, “You’re doing it all wrong—here’s a new system to fix everything.” However, Understanding by Design stands out because each idea is valuable on its own and can be implemented incrementally, whether in a single lesson or across an entire unit.
I read the book slowly, often pausing to highlight insights I wanted to remember. While it’s rich in theory, the authors also provide practical tools for implementation, including planning templates and examples that guide educators through the design process.
I highly recommend this book to both new and experienced teachers. It’s a thoughtful, practical resource that can genuinely improve instructional design and student learning.
March 26, 2019
This is the best book on instructional design that I have read to date! How often do people complete a professional short course or an academic program with excellent scores on the post-test, only to be unable to put what they've learned into practice on-the-job? There's a host of causes for what some of my colleagues call the "book learning" problem. This book addresses all those causes and proposes what appears to be an effective approach to design at the curriculum, course, and unit level. Some may call the approach heretical because it is not obvious and goes against much educational "tradition." The authors address this and other concerns such as "But I have to teach to the test" and "I don't have the time or resources to do it."
June 18, 2019
UBD is an excellent book that evaluates curriculum writing and how to achieve true understanding, as opposed to “knowledge” or short term recall of facts.
The book dives into better definitions of “understanding”, and then presents a solution to achieve it. By focusing on desired outcomes and questions, a person could work backwards and pursue great results. This would avoid the two biggest teaching mistakes, coverage and activity focused learning methods (used in extreme).
This is geared for teachers. The first few chapters can be universally helpful (defining understanding vs knowledge) for non-teachers. Otherwise, it’s likely a waste of time.
The book dives into better definitions of “understanding”, and then presents a solution to achieve it. By focusing on desired outcomes and questions, a person could work backwards and pursue great results. This would avoid the two biggest teaching mistakes, coverage and activity focused learning methods (used in extreme).
This is geared for teachers. The first few chapters can be universally helpful (defining understanding vs knowledge) for non-teachers. Otherwise, it’s likely a waste of time.
July 15, 2017
This is an excellent book in helping the educator understand how the art of teaching can be put back into the profession. Courses, units, and daily lessons can be planned to assist in the student achieve the end learning that teachers desire students to 'get.' This provides a good background on how to include all students on the continuum within the classroom.
June 18, 2020
I haven’t really “finished” the book yet, because I will be using it in several classes, but I must say this is a comprehensive collection of educator planning, especially surrounding Essential Questions. Through this book, I realized that I actually really like Jay McTighe. This is probably the only time this will happen in my career as an educator, so I am savoring it. Hooray for transfer learning.
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