This year, I had the opportunity to teach British literature for the first time — the course that made me want to teach English — and I had a wonderful time. I will be handing the course over to a colleague, and I hope she will enjoy it, too. I also had the opportunity to…
Meg Fitzpatrick, editor of of the UbD e-journal Big Ideas, invited me to contribute to both the e-journal and a new blog they are announcing today: The Faculty Room. Please come on over and join in our conversations (my first post on the blog should appear some time tomorrow). You will find other “familiar faces”…
If you haven’t happened upon Nick Senger’s blog Teen Literacy Tips, you need to check it out. Nick provides valuable content in every post. I am subscribed to his RSS feed through Bloglines, and I invariably bookmark his new posts so I can return to them when I have time (what’s that?). I recently finished…
I went to the annual Georgia Independent School Association (GISA) Annual Conference today. I ate lunch with Megan; it’s cool to see connections I made through this blog become “real-life” connections as well. Incidentally, Megan presented a session on using social bookmarking (such as del.icio.us). The two sessions I went to were very interesting (which…
Some months down the road after its creation, the UbD Educators wiki has fallen silent. I logged in today to find that neither changes nor discussions had taken place in the last 30 days. Yikes! I take part of the blame upon myself. Having five preps leaves me, ironically, with not much time to plan,…
If you weren’t able to attend EduBloggerCon or NECC, you might want to check out the K12 Online Conference this October. According to the conference website, The “K12 Online Conference” is for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! The 2007 conference…
After finishing Understanding by Design, I created two units: Apostrophes (9th grade Grammar, Comp., and Lit.) Beowulf (11th grade British Lit. and Comp.) If you are familiar with UbD (or even if you aren’t), I’d appreciate feedback. You can contribute to discussions at UbD Educators wiki without joining the wiki. I can’t remember if I…
The final chapter of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe’s Understanding by Design is a summary of the research presented in refutation of three common reasons educators give for why they do not implement UbD: 1) “We have to teach to the test”; 2) “We have too much content to cover”; and 3) “This work [backward…
In “The Big Picture: UbD as Curriculum Framework,” Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe elevate the discussion of backward design to its application for designing K-16 curricula. OK, I see the benefits, and I’m ready to start, but I don’t see how everyone who factors in designing the curricula for K-16 students would get on board…
In this chapter, “The Design Process,” of Understanding by Design, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe turn to the process of backward design. The good news for me is that no one “correct” way to design a successful UbD unit or curriculum exists. Teachers can start at any stage and move back and forth through the…
