UbD Workshop with Jay McTighe

This is my first blog so bear with me!  I teach Kipp Tulsa and went to their yearly conferance this week.  One workshop I went to was UbD with Jay McTighe.  I found it helpfull since I am currently reading the book and having some difficulty with the reading.   These are the highlights of the workshop that helped me make sense of the methodology of UbD. I hope you find it helpful too.

1.  The 6 facets of understanding are not necessarily assessed in every unit.  You assess the facets that apply to the level of understanding required by the standards you are teaching in that unit.  The facets of explanation and application are required for checking for understanding.

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2.  Hdvice for starting to implement UbD:  1. Think Big (3 or 4 yrs to do all your units in UbD format).  2. Start Small.  3. Go for "an early win in Iowa"-pick one unit you know well and like to try to do in UbD.  If can, try a second unit second semester.  He recommends doing 2 units a year until you do all (each time reviewing and revising units after teaching).

3.  An idea to check your unit for alignment as you creat: Fill in template for Stage 1 and 2.  Fold template down so that Stage 2 is showing, show to a colleague and ask them to tell you what they think the goals are from what they are reading in Stage 2.  If they say everything you have in Stage 1, good job.  If they miss something you had in Stage 1, then you have feedback as to how you need to review and revise.  Can do the same thing for Stage 3 to see if it maches with Stage 1

4.  For more resources go to jaymctighe.com.  Click on resources to get a blank template for you to use. You can look at unit designs done well all across the country.  He highlighted the ones he thought were excellent. He re worked the template in book and I like it better. It's not posted on his website yet but will be soon.  It will be the template labeled version 2.0.

It was comforting to know that he agreed that the book was a tough read.  He was welcome to heare from us on #sbarbook.  He has done study guides for some of his books too on his website.  He does recommend the professional development workbook for more examples.

Well those were my take aways from the workshop.  I will begin working on my first unit this week.  I'm worried but am going to jump right in and try it.