UbD/DI Chapter Three

Reflection on Reading

Name: Tyler Duran, Sam Brisette, Rebecca McIntire, Ryan Michaud

Date: 09-19-2007

Book Title: UbD/DI

Chapter: Three

Write a brief abstract of the chapter.

Chapter three focused on what should constitute a successful, engaging, and reasonable curriculum for teaching. It briefly identified content standards, the necessity of choosing which content is important to learn so students can meet such standards, and how educational benchmarks can be incorporated into the backward design model. Like some of the previous chapters it provided steps and examples of how the task (in this case, UbD) can be achieved. The text proposed focusing on the “big ideas” and “core processes,” than applying these to UbD in order to control content overload. Charts were included to help aim this planning process, and a series of questions at the beginning of the chapter guided the reader in identifying the major concepts of the text.

How did you connect to the reading and briefly reflect on your thoughts?

The chapter was useful in re-ascertaining what we had discussed in class on Tuesday. It was also helpful that the chapters were designed using the UbD model, which allowed for us to take in the information easier, although it can still seem a bit overwhelming at times. It also identified the flaws with benchmarks by stating there are over 3,000 different types in U.S. education and that to meet all the standards students would need over nine more years of schooling. The section that outlined frequently asked questions was also helpful because it put backwards design into a real world context and exemplified the responsive teaching model that is being stressed in the Armstrong book. This was useful because it emphasized that no matter the response mode, the criteria used for grading should focus solely on the content goals. This allows us as teachers to design curriculum in order to instruct all types of intelligences and ensure them that they can demonstrate their understanding in ways that best fit them as learners.