Week 4 – Understanding by Design

What is the Understanding by Design Model?

After reviewing the ADDIE and the Dick and Carey models, now we are about to focus on the Understanding by Design model, developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. The educators reflect about what the learner need to “understand” of a specific content.

The UbD model is known because it is a backward design, starting from the desired outcome first. In other words, it starts from the end.

1. Firstly, the educators identify the knowledge and skills that the students need to achieve at the end of the course.
2. Next, they design assessments that measure the achievement of the objectives.
3. Finally, they create activities and tasks aligned with the objectives and skills desired.

Starting a course by the end, allows the educator to align all the course components (materials, assessments, activities and methodology) with the learning objectives.

In addition to the understanding of the content as one of the main goals, another main idea of the UbD model is the transferability of the skills learned to the real-world. The learning objectives and the activities must me connected with real experiences so the learners can apply the skills learned.

Understanding by Design by Pilar González

Strengths and Limitations of the UbD in Education K-12

In Education, we face many challenges nowadays. In particular, most educators complain about the lack of time to go through the curriculum. Teachers are not able to teach all the lessons, and they usually need to decide what is the most relevant content. In other words, they have to decide what the learners really need to “understand”, what are the main ideas.

The backward design is the foundation of the UbD model. If the educators identify the main learning objectives, they will plan the instruction around it.

In addition, transferability has been always present in Education K-12. The teachers should always make connections between the academic knowledge and the real-world situations. This is another strategy to make the content useful and gain motivation from our learners.

For new educators, this model has a different point of view compared with the traditional models like ADDIE and Dick and Carey. As a consequence, the teacher will need to get trained in this backwards planning and incorporate the routine to their daily instruction. The UbD requires consistency to be successful.

Finally, another limitation for Education will be the need to align the assessments with the learning outcomes. In Education we usually use the assessments already created by the school district or the Curriculum, so asking the educators to elaborate their own could be time consuming and some might not have the required level of expertise.

Implications of the UdB for Instructional Design

Starting from the end is an interesting methodology that facilitates the alignment of the course with the learning objectives.

In the UdB model, the instructional designer thinks about the outcomes first, and then he plans and designs the rest of the course accordingly.

In my opinion, creating the activities after identifying the objectives and the assessments is the best option to ensure the activities are actually preparing the learner’s to be successful in the assessments and as a consequence, they will be mastering the learning goals.

The UbD model requires a lot of expertise to plan backwards and design assessments and activities aligned with the objectives. For beginners, it will require guidance, time and dedication to orchestrate all the components of the course around the desired outcomes. However, this is probably the best way to create a learning experience well defined and with all the elements connected coherently.