Understanding by design, or UBD, is a teaching tactic that
is new to me but one I can easily see myself attempting to employ. I think
myself and many of my classmates (though I don’t mean to speak for them, these
are just my own assumptions) struggle with what we’re taught about teaching for
several reasons. Namely:
1.
What we’re being taught is often drastically different
from the way we were taught in high school, thus taking away the opportunity
for us to have any models.
&
2.
What we’re being taught often demonizes the
methods by which we were taught, creating a strange push and pull from our
inclinations as teachers: we gravitate towards the methods through which we learned
but also feel the need to shun them as we’ve been told that these methods are “bad”
methods.
I will not say that none of my
teachers in high school created their lesson plans “backwards”, from what they
wanted us to understand to the ways in which they planned on transmitting such
understanding. However, I know for a fact that nearly all of my high school
successes can be measured by the grades I got on tests, quizzes, and essays. Though
chapter 1 extolls a balance between “demonstration
and application of knowledge” and drilling, I find it to be, for once, one text
that does not demonize such “drilling.” I appreciated here the sports metaphor
because as a dancer (sorry, it’s always going to come back to dance for me!) I
know that drilling is necessary to get good at a piece of something but I also
know that drilling doesn’t always translate to understanding in the long run.
Yes, I can do that move on its own perfectly, but can I do it in a step? Can I
do it with a different timing? When I practice it in context, there comes my
demonstration of understanding and application.
I would say that my high school
teachers got understanding out of me in the same way- tests and quizzes and
in-class practice/drills resulted in understanding via essays or projects. I
think that modules A and F (thank you, thank you for giving “real life”
examples and processes in these readings!) were excellent in conveying this process,
particulary in instances such as:
A driving test is an excellent
example of how knowledge and application converge to create understanding. For
once, I kind of get it and see that the methods we are being taught really aren’t
so different from the way in which I was taught. And for once, teaching is
somewhat demystified and I can actually see how I will apply these not-so-new
methods in my own teaching someday.
Megh,
ReplyDeleteI like how you mention that the way we are being taught to teach differs from the way our teachers taught us in high school. I also have noticed this, especially in the skills taught within Sed 406. For example, I was told that as a teacher, I should prepare lessons that let students think freely and even move around the room and never just teach an entire period of lecture. However, I did have many teachers who used the lecture method every class, especially in history. I think for many of us, our favorite teachers would be the ones who did more to guide our learning.
I also like how you mention that when thinking back to high school you remember your grades being scored based on how well you did on tests / quizzes. I remember this too and I remember struggling with this in some classes where I put in a lot of effort but my grade did not reflect it due to one poor exam score. As teachers, I think it is important to have informal assessment just as often as formal assessment. Not all students do well on tests, so I believe incorporating several different types of assessment into their grade is essential to all students success.