Chapter 10

This chapter discussed moving forward to integrate UbD and DI. It expressed how the best place to start is by really figuring out our desired results and finding that "big idea." This is found in stage one, which, focuses on engaging student interest in school and creating higher quality and meaningful work for each student. Stage two discussed the teachers job. It is important for them to decided how they are going to assess each student and cater to their learning styles. It also emphasized the culmination of knowledge in a project or activity. Stage three is when the teacher thinks bout how to get their students to the chosen goal. It reminds the teacher to pay attention to goals and methods of assessment, because those can make or break the learner. The chapter also discussed different methods and practices for teachers. One of which was finding a parter to work and plan lessons with. This way the students wil be learning two different subjects in two different classrooms. The overall main idea of the chapter was to keep the desired results in sight.


We all liked how this chapter summarized the major points of the book. It outlined what we have been doing in class this semester. One helpful idea was the suggestion to take this book and share it with others. Teaching should be a team based effort. We know when we are in our own classrooms we will use differentiated instruction because it really helps students learn more.

DI and UbD Chapter 7

This chapters emphasis is on "uncovering" the material; that is to truly go over it in depth and ensure that the students have full understandings about a subject before the instructor moves on. The emphasis about correlation and causation in the very beginning sums it up nicely.
Instructors can ensure that the material is properly uncovered by asking themselves essential questions about the lesson they planned. The essential questions themselves are the ones asked at the very first stage of backwards design. To bring the students closer to the essential questions, other open ended thought provoking questions are answered. The ones with answers that change depending on who answers them are always the best.
The Six facets of Understanding serve may serve as both indicators for understanding and as possible "hooks" You always have to hook students. In dealing with these complex understandings it is important to remember that basic skills will be picked up as the students find themselves engaging in the more advanced lessons.
Lastly and most importantly we have the WHERETO framework which pulls everything together into a general outline of a lesson. If the instructor follows the WHERETO formula it will mean a great difference in the ability of the students to learn the material and ease the teachers task of teaching it.


All of us connected he reading with what we are currently doing now in Stage 2 with the WHERETO format. We all see how the format allows us to effectively plan and implement those plans as future teachers. A few of us noted that the ladder system that was disparaged (rightly so in many cases) in the text does seem to have a few uses though, especially when basics are absolutely essential to the discipline. I argue math is one of those categories. If one has a shaky algebra base, one is going to find oneself in trouble come trigonometry. I can vouch for this with personal experience. I believe that for other concepts such as social science, the basics can be learned from advanced work. Same thing with English. I'm a decent writer when I wish, and it isn't because I spent hours going over vocab and grammar, but because I spent hours reading books. As teachers, if we can find an application that teaches the students both basic skills and advanced skills at the same time, we should most definitely utilize that application to its full potential. Technology already produces some of those applications (blogging) and I imagine that more will be produced as time goes on. And every time something new comes out, we as teachers need to say to ourselves (and others) "How can we use this?"

Chapter 9

This chapter is both a summary of much of the material to this point as well as more information about working with and perfecting differentiation in the classroom. Looking rather specifically at a health example, the chapter looks at how an entire unit looks when done with backwards design. It comes down to really making the enitre process, including the environment and curriculum, entirely about the benefit of the student. The better we do of this the more signs we'll see in assessment and overall student attitude.
We all found this chapter to be very helpful, not so much in content as in it helped tie a lot of stuff together. I think that its more of how its written that I feel will help us progress in our teaching. As Dr. Grace pointed out in class, when we start teaching we're going to really have a lot to do in our first few months and sometimes slowing down and really thinking about what we need to do and what has been done will be really good in helping us get the important materials across to the students. Finding the "big picture" is so very important to proper planning.

DI UbD Chapter 5

The entire chapter covers accurate testing techniques that properly assess the capabilities of the student being tested. The three key principles to assessment are as follows: Does the assessment cover a broad concept, or a fine detail of the concept? Do the measures match the goals of the test? And the last is whether or not the form of the test serves its own function. The chapter also detailed the GRASPS frame which provides a frame for more detailed and effective/efficient learning. Grasp stand for Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Products, Standards.
The chapter also discusses pre-assessment and how it should be used by the teacher to understand what the students already have learned and how the lesson or unit should be tailored to suit their needs.


This approach conflicts with the current test crazy system that we have in place; both instituted by colleges and the federal government. It is rather difficult to implement teaching styles when an all important test is looming over the heads of teachers and students alike.
This chapter also connected with the six facets of learning that were introduced in "Fair isn't Always Equal in chapter 2, and reminded teachers that giving work back to students quickly is very important. Every student has stories about teachers that weren't quick to give back important work.
Lastly, this chapter really emphasises how every assignment should have a goal and a purpose, thus eliminating busy work. Everything done in class is one more step along the path to a higher goal.

Chapter 6

Having a lesson plan designed to differentiate when necessary and assist the students in learning whenever possible is fantastic, would make educations far better all over the world, if they are carried out correctly of course. Being able to effectively deliver lessons is key to students mastering a concept. Some nice tactics to remember are sharing the overall goals with the students regularly, this allows the students to see the relevance of the lesson. Also its nice to work with other teachers to plan class runnings for optimized student performance.

This chapter was a great help in that we're all working at developing plans for lessons and it gave a few ideas to prepare for actually teaching the lessons we prepare to teach them. We should always keep in mind as students/teachers, our educations are continuing and we always need to be ready to adapt and improve.