DI+UbD+Chapter+10+Block+2

Synthesis UbD/DI C10 B2

The appendix had an overview of the theory, research, and expert advice that supports teaching for understanding and responsive and differentiated instruction. Some of the ideas that were overviewed were: the studies of student achievement, in which educators found that the instructional methods that were found to enhance student achievement were the basic elements of the pedagogy in the Understanding by Design planning model; when looking at the differentiation model as a whole, studies have shown that across classrooms in numerous schools, achievement and attitude-about-schools benefits accrued to low-economic primary grade students who were taught in accordance with identified “intelligence preferences,” and also that “students at all levels of performance in an elementary school in which teachers have studied and applied principles of differentiation over a four-year period have continued to demonstrate positive achievement gains compared to achievement gains in other schools in the same district over the same period” (184). || This chapter provides an abundance of possibilities and actions to take for taking a step forward towards classrooms that successfully connect the elements of Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction. I thought many of these suggestions seemed like good ideas and possibilities to consider, like discussing the book with others, or I was thinking I could just lend or recommend the book to a colleague and discuss in while they are reading it and/or after they have finished reading. ||
 * **Names** || **Abstract** || **Reflection** ||
 * Barnes Mckell || The last chapter in the book UBD/DI reviews what the book has talked about. The final chapter brings the Backwards Design Model together by quickly reviewing the three stages. Stage one outlines the big picture and what you want your students to know. Stage 2 is an outline of how you’re going to assess their knowledge; this stage is a little more in depth. And, stage 3 is an outline of what you’re going to present to your students and how you are going to present it. This chapter sums up the book in a quick and easy way. || I really like how this chapter brought the entire book together and clarified any questions about any of the stages in the Backwards Design Model. I thought this chapter did a great job of tying things together. This book provided really good ideas to help me design useful lesson plans. It is a great tool to use in the future when I teach. ||
 * Brennick Christopher || Chapter 10 of DI/UBD goes through and wraps up the book by reviewing the contents and then offering some ways to integrate it. The first part of this chapter just reviews the three stage of the backwards design process. The second section of this chapter offers readers an idea of how you as a teacher or a school district can integrate the two parts of this book. This part of the book is rich with resources and ideas of how to bring the contents of this book alive in the schools we will work in someday || I think it is important to end on a note like this. I really liked how the book looked at it from reviewing and then saying what you can do as a teacher and what can you do as a school or district. I feel it was really important to put in the section about school wide because in order to create the type of change we need in education we do need to put things like this in at the school and district level and not just the class room level. ||
 * Columbia Laura || Chapter ten of UbD and DI goes through each of the steps of understanding how these two methods shape your teaching style. Stage 1 states that is important to find what results you are looking for while incorporating UbD and DI. Your main goals should be a deeper understanding, greater interest and engagement in school, higher quality of work from students and an improvement in achievement of students. Stage 2 seeks to have an understanding of what you want to achieve, what data are you seeking to obtain. Stage 3 suggests how you are going to get to where you planned. You need to look at being an individual teacher or at the school or district level. The appendix of chapter UbD and DI offers new findings such as feedback is fundamental to learning. Also included were studies of how differentiated instruction and understanding by design positively affect students. || This chapter was very clear in explaining the stages of these theories. There were many different methods of doing this at the different levels such as the individual teacher or the district level. It was a good recap. This book overall was harder to understand, but the conclusion was very clear. It gave me a good reference on what I should do as a teacher, and what I should expect or encourage from my administration. The appendix was also very helpful with suggestions as well as reports on how well it has worked in different studies. ||
 * Coombs Kayla || Chapter ten is about integrating Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction; taking what one has learned about these topics and using them in their classroom. First, one should start by considering what they expect and want for results by connecting Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction. They should outline the anticipated and desired results for what they should do and what they want the students to do. After they have identified specific results, he or she should consider when they will be able to identify a successful connection between Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction. In what form will the evidence of the progression toward the goals come, and how can he or she assess their current status, should also be considered. Next, one must think specifically about how they will get to the point of successful connecting of Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction. As an individual teacher, one should work with a colleague to be able to work collaboratively and problem solve. One should also make a specific plan for how they are going to implement the ideas and note and assess the effects of the ideas. At the school or district level, one should consider a set of specific actions, and some of these are as follows: establish a study group to read and discuss this book; view and discuss such videos on Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction like Differentiating Instruction, At Work in the Differentiated Classroom, What is Understanding? and Using Backward Design; conduct faculty meetings; work in grade-level or department groups to unpack content standards; analyze current achievement data to identify areas of student misunderstanding and develop intervention plans; establish and implement action research/lesson study teams around achievement problem areas; and seek state, federal, and foundation grants to support Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction implementation.
 * Cummons Michael || Chapter ten of DI UbD is an overview of understanding by design. It talks about stage one and knowing exactly what you will be teaching about. It talks about stage two and how it helps you undersant about assessments and performance tasks. It also looks at benchmarks and how teachers come to conclusions about what they will use. This chapter goes into detail about why the backward design is the best way to go when making a lesson plan. Research has found that inequalities between high and low performing students were greatly decreased when normally low performing students wer taugh and assessed using certain strategies. || I really liked this chapter. I gave a great overview of what we have been going over. I think the backward design is very effective and stage one two and three really help the process along. It helps you undersand exactly what you are teaching for. When you know the goals it really helps you think of how you can teach to students. ||
 * Damboise Kelley || Chapter ten is a basic overview of what we have been working with for the past couple of weeks. Stage one is described as the big picture overview when beginning to set up a unit. In stage one it is important to look at the big ideas that should be presented within this unit, and begin developing essential questions to help create a deep understanding of the topic. In this stage it is important to think about the curriculum goal and how through this unit that goal can be reached. Stage two digs a little deeper into finding ways to show evidence that the students are working towards the overall goal. What kinds of assessments would be efficient when teaching this unit, and how can we as teacher track the progress that our students will make from the beginning of this unit until the end? Teacher need to come up with benchmarks that students must meet along the way to assess whether learning is taking place. Stage three is usually consider one of the fun steps because teacher are using their creative side to come up with new and exciting ways to present the material using UbD and DI. The main principle of stage three is to have teachers figure out how students are going to achieve the overall goal. The chapter continues on providing information for teachers and the school or district level on how to find ways to incorporate the understanding by design and the differentiated instruction into the classrooms.

The appendix discusses the support and research behind understanding by design and the differentiated instruction models. Two areas, cognitive psychology and student achievement, were focused on when researching UbD. Cognitive psychology suggest that teachers need to come away from the old ways of practicing memorization and focus on trying to have their students deepen their knowledge by understanding and applying their knowledge. Novices tend to focus on searching for the correct answer or formula where experts seek to understand the big ideas; this is how teachers should be teaching. Studies of student achievement suggest that teachers use authentic performance assessments and pedagogy to help promote a deep understand of a certain subject. Research found that “inequalities between high-and low-performing students were greatly decreased when normally low-performing students were taught and assessed using these strategies” (Tomlinson & McTighe, p. 175). In support of differentiated instruction it is important to understand that students are different in their readiness, interest, and learning profile. Readiness suggest that this affects a student’s growth in a particular area of knowledge, and when learners are challenged to the right degree the will seek to understand and learn. Interest plays a huge part in helping students learn the material because they want to learn more and they want that deep understanding. Learning profile is extremely important in the sense that if teacher are going to use differentiated instruction they need to learn their students learning styles and help expose the material to them in ways that complement the students learning style. || I remember reading this chapter at the beginning of practicum and having no idea what is was talking about. I didn't understand the stages and I had no idea what was meant when the author would talk about understanding by design and differentiated instruction. After rereading the chapter I have a much better understand of the information, and am able to make the connections that I could not make when I first read the chapter. Now that I have actually been through, and experience how to set up stage 1, 2, and 3 this chapter has much more of an impact on what I have learned.

When I first read the appendix I was completely lost, I barely understood what the appendix was referring to when it mentioned understanding by design or differentiated instruction. Now that I went back and read it again after learning what I have the appendix information was ten times more valuable. I understood the research portion much better and was able to make connections to what we had been discussing in class to the reading. ||
 * Kelley Kathleen || Chapter ten in Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design focused mainly on everything that we have learned about understanding by design, differentiated instruction, the stages of development and how all of those methods should be integrated in the classroom. It began by discussing the main points of stage one. Stage one is important because the desired results are for the students to understand and grasp the large ideas presented to them, for them to be able to answer the essential questions that stem from the big ideas, and to meet the criteria presented. Stage two requires that we begin to start thinking like teachers. It discusses the idea of finding acceptable evidence to prove they are proficient in their materials. It is in this stage that we need to begin to identify the criteria and benchmarks that need to be examined. The final stage is where all of the planning begins to come together. During this stage a teacher begins to think specifically about how these students will come to understand these big ideas. It finishes up by talking about how individual teachers and school districts will be able to integrate all of this learning into their own classrooms and schools. Suggestions were made on the district level to further improve the quality of UbD and DI || After reading this chapter a second time, I am glad that it finally makes sense to me. I think that reading this chapter at the very beginning was good because it showed that I really knew nothing about this subject, but the second time around really reinforced and condensed everything that we have read in chapters one through five. It means a lot more to me now than it did the first day of class. I now see that it will play a major role in my classroom. ||
 * Knowles Christina || The purpose of these to chapters is to wrap up the book. We are teaches and we need to focus on having students learn to the maximum of their ability. The chapter cover the three stages it takes for us to adequately teach a lesson and assess our students. We now know to put this whole book together and use differential instruction in our classrooms. || I am glad that we re-read these chapter now because I actually understood them this time. I understnd what differential instruction actually is. I also understand why we read it for our first readings; we did so that we can get a taste of what DI is and so that we could put all the chapters together as we read. ||
 * Mourkas Margaret || Chapter 10 was a big overview of the entire book. This chapter goes in depth about the 3 major stages that are needed when creating a engaging unit for students. Stage 1 – desired results for learners as well as educators, Stage 2 – assessments and how we know that once we have achieved our desired results, Stage 3 – how to achieve the desired result. || I really liked that this chapter was a summary chapter instead of something new because it allowed the reader to really take in what the book was all about and how we as educators can help our students. ||
 * O'Neil Christopher || Chapter 10 was essentially an over-view of the entire book. It gave a few tips and pointers on how teachers should act on the information and the ideas that were provided in the book. The rest of the chapter goes over the three stages of the backward design model. It explains the importance of each stage and what teachers should look at achieving with each stage. The last two sections of the chapter discussed how teachers and schools/districts can use the ideas discussed throughout this book in their classrooms. || I liked this chapter because it gave a very quick over-view of the entire book. It explained the most important factors that were discussed in the book and why they were important. It also went over the three stages again in case readers still weren’t sure of what the three stages were. I am not sure how valuable the information about the school/district would be to me as an individual teacher, but it was very in depth and would be very useful to have at the school/district level. ||
 * Richardson Cassandra || Chapter ten acted as a wrap-up of the entire book, retouching on the main points of previous chapters. It broke things down into stages; the first, results, the second, the importance of assessments, and third, how to achieve our desired results. The last sections had suggestions for teachers and districts can successfully apply the practical ideas in the previous sections to everyday life. || The second time around reading this chapter, it made a lot more sense to me in that coming into this set of classes we were completely unaware of how much we didn’t know about teaching. I liked the chapter because it provided a brief overview of the entire book as a summary. ||
 * Trundy Monique || In chapter ten Tomlinson and McTighe review the three stages of unit planning. The first stage expresses desired results for learners as well as changes wanted in the classroom, school or district. The second stage covers the development of formative and summative assessments. The third stage is where individual lessons take form. Tomlinson and McTighe suggest trying out any new teaching methods at least three times before throwing it away. They also offer a host of ways to learn how to incorporate DI/UbD into the classroom. || Reading the chapter again was a really good idea. The first time I read it, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. This time around, however, I was able to understand what I was reading and pull the useful/helpful information. I really like the idea/advice about trying an idea at least three times before giving up on the lesson. It’s a very simple theory but an effective one. Trying a lesson multiple times allows the teacher to work the bugs out of the plan and make it better for the next time around. ||
 * Webb Christopher || Chapter 10 was an overview of UbD/DI. It also talked about different ways to implement it in schools. Stage 1 was about the desired results for learners as well as educators. The Second stage discusses the assessment part and how will we know once we have achieved our desired results. The third stage talks about how to actually achieve the desired results we are looking for. It gives so many ways at the end of the chapter on how to foster the UbD/DI connection at the school and district levels. The Appendix for this book talked about studies that were conducted on certain schools and regions of the world. || I liked this chapter because I thought it summed up the book very well. All of the ideas given at the end seemed really useful for helping implement UbD/DI. I thought the appenedix was the best part though. Putting it into context by talking about all the studies which were conducted was a great ideas and very interesting. ||
 * West Simon || This reading seemed to be a compilation of what the real meanings of UBD/DI instruction. We got to read about what both students and educators help to take away from implementing UBD/DI into schools, as well as how to effectively asses using UBD/DI as apposed to only teaching with this method. Like we have read earlyer if we are going to teach with UBD/DI we must also assess with this system to really create differentiated instruction in the classroom. Further reading shows how we are abble to attain a true sense of UBD/DI through out an entire school district, showing the importance of a whole school system being on board with the implimentation of UBD/DI. The other parts of our reading discssed some of the studeies and information gathered through observing the results of using UBD/DI. || I really enjoyed this reading because it seemed to be a good closing for this book and gave some really good insight to the real impact of what UBD/DI can have on a learning environment. I feel that this reading made itself a very powerful addition to the rest of the chapters and helped to solidify the importance of a great teaching method. ||