UbDDI+B1+Chapter+7

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Max

 * Abstract:** This chapter goes into the [|WHERETO] method. This is a big step when making your lesson plan. It is a method that incorporates the six facets of understanding and your [|essential questions]. It explains the goals of the material and hooks the students into the project. It allows students to equip, explore, experience, relate, revise and rethink all the information. Then when your students have gotten the information and understood it the next step is to assess the students. This process also forces you to use strategies to incorporate all different kinds of intelligences. The final step is to organize your thoughts into a brief description.

Our feedback shows that we have a good understanding about the WHERETO process. We have incorporated this into our stage three of our lesson plans. This will help us teach to many different kinds of intelligences and keep our class fun. I'm sure if we were to read this chapter again after using the WHERETO process we would have a lot better understanding. We know that it is a guideline to making effective lesson plans but, now we realize how it works and how we can teach to our essential questions.
 * Synthisis**

Mike
The author in this chapter introduces a concept for teaching called WHERETO. This concept basically asks questions deals with what students will be learning, how to hook on to your students' attention span, what experiences will help them learn, helping students rethink previous material, evaluating your students, tailoring to all students' learning abilities, and how you will organize the learning in your classroom. This concept is very helpful for teachers when developing fresh and innovative unit while also giving you an idea of how you will teach the diversity of learners in your classroom. I feel this concept will help my students become more active in the classroom because you can incorporate students more if you fit in discussion and ask questions into your curriculum. I plan on utilizing this concept because I also think that my students will have a better understanding of what is happening in class. This concept I feel is also easier to help keep track of students,so that they will not be lost on what is happening.

Seth
“Less is more” (114). Like I stated a previous blog (which I can’t seem to find) I had said that I would ask my students a question similar to “Which battle of the Civil War was the most significant? Why? Be sure to include as much detail as possible in your answer.” Why not do this //before// a test as a review of sorts for the class? Open forum, the students are welcome to debate each other on the topic and my goal as the teacher is that they don’t come to a general consensus. Why? By arguing their point they are showing me that they know and understand the material as well as learning about other battles and events from their classmates. Yes. I would definitely trick my students into studying like that. Why? “Less is more. A truly essential question can go a long way” (114).

Max
I find that my class at Mt. Blue has ridiculously short attention spans. They can’t seem to focus on the lessons at all. I think this is because they are allowed to listen to their iPods and have laptops. The chapter gives hints on asking direct questions to the students and involves them in conversations. Don’t allow them to just sit there and stare. When I gave my lesson at Mt. Blue, we were doing inequalities and they involved steps so I asked students who I thought were getting off task what the next step would be. I don’t think it is important to call on students who know the right answers because they don’t need extra help. It’s about involving the student that needs help so you can walk them through it.

Brody
I think it would be safe to say that many students have been in classes where material is glossed over so the teacher can stuff the most content possible into a given year. This is an assault on the teaching profession in my opinion as students aren’t truly being taught. They are being force fed information to cram for that one daunting test that doesn’t allow any deep connection to their learning. Thus, they aren’t doing what the seventh chapter of UbD/DI is all about- understanding the material. Tomlinson and McTighe give three approaches to deepen student understanding: essential questions, the six facets of understanding, and the WHERETO model. As I have already been introduced to essential questions and the six facets of understanding in class when planning backward design lesson plans, I will focus on the WHERETO model here. The model first asks teachers to clearly explain the goals, performance expectations, and assessments of a lesson. It also requires teachers “hook” the learner which is actually something I’ve been working on in class. I am currently designing a unit and lesson plan where I need to hook the students with a creative problem incorporating the essential questions. These essential questions and desired results are the basis for the next part of the WHERETO model (the first E). It is also crucial to allow students to come to an understanding through revision and reflection. Next, allow students to self assess and reflect on their growth while simultaneously allowing differentiated instruction. Then, reflect on the lesson plans and unit so you can organize the lessons that provide the optimal learning experience. Many of these suggestions may seem like common sense, but I’m sure the saying “it’s easier said than done” applies to this model. I hope to have more practice with the WHERETO model in the near future.

Jen
This chapter of UBD/DI really emphasizes on the teachers approach to "assessing" students. It's crucial that the essential questions teachers pose engages students in the process of "understanding." It's important for teachers to teach in a way that helps students understand the content and really absorb and learn the material. The question that struck me right from the beginning that really made me take a step back and think about how I would handle the situation if I were the teacher is: "What about those students who haven't mastered the basics?" (108). Then what? Do we go back to the beginning and explain the missing pieces, well of course. Students can't gain new knowledge, or they can't understand new knowledge if they don't even know the basics. This brings us to the title of the chapter, "Teaching for Understanding in Academically Diverse Classrooms." So what do you do as a teacher if some of your students are way behind the other students? Do you split them up and give them different tasks? And how would that make the dynamic of your classroom? And wouldn't that cause the students to always be in different "levels" the whole year. These are all factors that are important in teaching to diverse learners. Students are all encouraged to learn, question, grow and expand, but as the teacher it's important to figure out how to do that effectively without holding anyone back or leaving anyone behind, maybe that's where the idea of differentiated instruction derived from.

Lily
This chapter goes over the importance of providing essential questions in the lesson plans. By doing this and asking these questions it helps and guides students to the major understanding you want them to capture, along with that it gives the students another way to keep on track with the goals we gave at the beginning of the lesson (like I talked about in chap. 6) WHERETO model was introduced and is designed to relate topics or “pulling it all together.” This model also talks to us about the preparation and planning that is needed before teaching and how important that it for our major curriculum. I need to start to do more research on the WHERETO so that I can get more practice using it.

Brittany
One of the common themes that Understanding by Design/Differentiated Intelligence is this idea of teaching basic skills and then allowing students to use those skills in a situation that really mattered. It would be like teaching a student how to cite sources in a paper and then never having them write the paper. It just does not make sense. Coming back to this chapter, the idea goes on to say that every student should be given the chance to do the “difficult” work and not just those students that are in the higher level classes. For me this follows with the thinking that all students can do whatever they put their minds too. There will be those students who need more time or instruction or help before they can do the assignment but the reality is that they can still do it. Just think, if you can show a student who has been in lower level classes that they can do this amazing project or complete a more difficult assignment, it could do wonders for their self-esteem and it might make teaching them more exciting for the teacher.

Casey
In chapter 7 I learned about the importance of asking well-aimed, open-ended questions. Essential questions lead students to use what knowledge they know and their ability for logical processing to come to their own conclusions. Most disciplines revolve around certain axiomatic questions. For example, “whose ‘story’ is it?” and “what can we learn from the past?” are two questions that are inseparable from studying history. If students are able to delineate the essential questions of the discipline of interest, then learning will likely come more easily to them.

Kim
The WHERETO model organizes teachers’ lessons by posing various questions that ask the teacher to think more about the learner. Some of it deals with engaging and hooking students at the beginning of the lesson, and some of it deals with helping the learner with the material. I have seen this model only briefly before, but I have a feeling that I will see it more very soon. It will be a good model to help guide my planning and my instruction because the questions it poses ask me to focus on the students more than the material.

Jasmyn
Teaching for understanding involves uncovering the content, it entails getting the heart of the subject without just “skimming the surface”. It will help the student understand what the content is all about if they get the total “package” by providing the answers to the questions through the content. For each of the subject areas there are essential questions that you must ask the student as they are learning the new content areas, this also opens the doors for the assessment throughout the units. I enjoy researching deeper into most subjects and I have found that I carry on intelligent conversation and ask better questions.

Leighlan
Ask essential questions that are open ended because they go deeper into the content. If the question is really essential than that one question covers more than several superficial questions in less time and results in students thinking more deeply. Help students answer the 5 w’s about the things they will be learning (what will they learn, why…). Get learners engaged, and give them tools and experiences to help them gain proficiency in the subject and be ready to use it in real life. Encourage students to rethink revise, and revisit previous work and learning and to self evaluate. Organize and customize your lessens to maximize understanding from all. A student should eventually ask themselves the 5 w’s, rethink, and self evaluate adimaticly.

Kaitlyn Bartlett
In chapter 7 of Understanding by Design, I liked that it laid out practical tips for using our essential questions in our lessons. I feel like this chapter could be a good tool for making future lesson plans. I also like the graphic organizer used to display the 6 facets of learning. I could use this in my classroom to have students recap the main ideas of the last class. I feel like it would be a good way to see how engaged or interested my students were in my lesson.