UbDDI+B2+Chapter+7

Abstract: By: Dan B
Chapter 7 talked about the difficult task that teachers have, they have to make sure that all of the students understand. The book suggests a variety of ways that teachers can make sure that students understand the material that is presented. The first thing presented is that you should look at your essential questions to guide your teaching, if you can uncover them then there will be a greater chance that the material will be understood. The second thing that the book suggests is that you should use the [|6 facets of understanding] to help come up with project ideas to test for understanding. The last thing the book suggests is that you should follow the WHERETO model when teaching, this will serve as guide when you are designing lesson plans.

Everybody agreed that teaching so that their students will understand the material is one of the most important parts of being a teacher. The class said that some of the most important things that we can do as teachers is to not only cover the material but to go in-depth and really uncover the material. Teachers can do that by keeping their [|essential questions] in mind, because they force the students to really understand the content. The second thing that nearly everybody brought up was to keep the facets of understanding in mind to make sure that the students understand the material. The last thing that almost everybody brought up was the WHERETO model because it is a good way to guide your teaching and to make sure that as a teacher you are covering the material in a way that ensures that all students are understanding the material that is being presented. toc

Tiarra
This chapter of UbD/DI focuses on helping teachers move from “anticipatory planning” to effective and engaging lesson execution that helps students to “uncover” the essential questions behind the curriculum rather than just memorize and manipulate facts. Tomlinson and McTighe discuss the nature of the essential questions, which may not only be answered once but rather are posed over and over again throughout a student’s education in order to deepen their understanding. When a teacher poses an essential question at the beginning of a unit they are not only setting a clear goal for a student to reach, but also using the question for diagnostic purposes to find out where each student is in relation to this goal before receiving further instruction. Teachers should not fear jumping straight into essential questions because even though a student may not have all the basic skills and knowledge to most fully answer the question they are still capable of achieving deeper understanding. As a student who’s reach frequently exceeded her grasp I personally feel that even though a student may be struggling to explain the depths of their understanding to the rest of the world, the understanding may still be there and it is the teachers job to provide the proper materials and opportunities to allow the student to fill the gap between what they understand and what they can express. I also believe that the WHERETO framework is a great place for a teacher to start doing exactly that. One thing I disagree with from this chapter was included as one of the six practical tips for using essential questions, which stated: “use ‘kid language’ as needed to make essential questions more accessible.” I believe that it is important for a teacher to demonstrate excellent speaking skills and advanced vocabulary when speaking to a class because you are demonstrating what you want your students to attain. It should be ok for a student to ask you to explain something clearer or define a word if they are held up by it and would even improve their own skills and vocabulary. Using “kid language” just sounds condescending.

Justin C.
The seventh chapter of this text talks about ways in which we can keep our students interest in our content and also to have them think to a whole new level. We want them to think beyond the surface and go deep beyond to find any underlying messages that most likely exist. We have to stray away from the concrete ways of thinking and move into more abstract ways. The big concept of this chapter, however, was the idea of planning using the WHERETO model. This is a planning method that is intended to be used to planning out an entire unit and getting lessons to flow into one another. Each letter of the acronym stands for a different aspect of lesson planning. The one that I feel I would have the least amount of trouble with would be the T, tailoring our lessons to our student’s interests. In this practicum class, there have been several ideas running through me as possible plans of teaching slope, such as creating a picture out of several lines and taking it out to the real world and creating a new snowboard park. The one I feel I would have the hardest time with would be the H, getting my students hooked on math. I feel that finding ways to connect to student’s interest through the T portion; I think that taking that to the next level will create ways to hook students into learning math.

Will L.
There are three key concepts that make instruction simpler and easier for students to comprehend. The first are the “essential questions,” which are used to catch the student’s attention and to get them on board with the material. The second concept is the “six facets,” which make lesson plans easier to assemble for teachers. The third concept is the “WHERETO” model. This model puts everything in a logical order and allows students to accurately assess themselves.

Dan B.
Chapter 7 talked about teaching material so that students can retain the information. You do not want to merely cover the material by skimming quickly over each section because you are in a rush to finish a textbook. You really need to uncover the material and make it so the students are engaged, because if you engage them and go more in-depth with the material then they will retain more of the information. As a teacher you want to present the material in a way that will allow the students to be able to relate with what you are teaching then they will be more engaged and will retain the information better. The goal of a teacher is to engage the student so they will better retain the information. The way that you can do this is by going in-depth with the material that you are presenting. You also will want to try and make it so students can relate with the material presented so they can retain the information better. The last important thing that I took out of the chapter was you, as a teacher, need to make sure your expectations for the students are clear; if you provide clear expectations for the student they will know exactly what they need to do to make sure they can demonstrate that they learned the material thoroughly. I want my students to take the most out of the lesson, so I will need to make sure I give clear expectations for my students, go in-depth during my lessons, and try to make it so they can relate to the material.

Grace K.
Chapter 7 encourages teachers to avoid certain pitfalls of education; namely, the tendency to avoid posing “big idea” questions to early-level learners and the impulse to “cover” material without really investigating it. I related to the idea posed by Tomlinson and McTighe that teachers shouldn’t cover material, but uncover it. It is a small difference in words but has a great impact on the feel of a classroom. As far as my own content area, I think this could be translated as students “doing history” rather than learning it – students are doing history when they take the initiative to investigate and form their own opinions rather than accept the ones posed by a book or teacher. Along this same line, the authors recommend that teachers should have open-ended questions without a simple answer in order to stimulate class discussions and student inquiry. These are easy to come by in history; one relating to my practicum unit would be “Was the decision to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima the right one?” followed by asking the same question about Nagasaki. Even historians can’t agree on an answer to these questions, and I feel that questions like that are vital to an engaging history class. Lastly, the authors stress that teachers cannot in good conscience ignore these big ideas and big questions just because they think some of their student’s aren’t equipped to answer them. Even considering the questions, without a lot of background knowledge or basic skills, is absolutely beneficial to students of every learning level.

Danny K.
Chapter seven covers teaching in a diverse classroom. This chapter explains the WHERETO framework. The W stands for what and why are your students learning what they are learning. The H stands for how will the teacher “hook” their students. E stands for how will the teacher equip their students to master the standards wanting to be learned. R stands for how to get students to rethink on their previous learning. E stands for how to promote student self-evaluations. T stands for how to tailor the work to the student’s interest. O stands for how the learning will be organized to maximize learning. I will use this framework when I am developing my units and when I am teaching in the classroom.

Chris D.
Chapter 7 of UbD/DI is all about how to teach for understanding in students. It starts off by saying that simply presenting the students with the information is dry, dull, and won’t make them understand the questions we want them to know the answers to. Instead of just handing them the information, as teachers we should make them think about reasons for why things are the way they are by asking them essential questions to incite some response. The acronym WHERETO introduced towards the end of the chapter is a powerful tool that I plan on using in my classroom. These 7 questions I feel can definitely help me when I go to decide what’s important to teach my students and how I plan on teaching it to them.

Jonathan B.
Chapter seven furthers the discussion on teaching in diverse classrooms from chapter six, but focuses more on teaching for understanding. The chapter stresses the importance of unpacking content and revealing its true essence to learners. Using essential questions will help direct student thinking towards the desired level of understanding. These are often linked to “big ideas” or concepts critical to the content at hand, like understanding the difference between physical and political geography. The chapter then moves on to the WHERETO framework. WHERETO is a set of principles necessary for planning—a vital component of actual teaching. As a teacher, I plan to incorporate directed, clearly set goals combined with effective planning so as to help my students achieve understanding efficiently and thoroughly.

Grady B.
In this chapter, I found the idea of “uncovering,” as opposed to simply “covering” content to be especially appealing. Specifically, I found the indirect criticism of trying to cover an entire textbook as a key curriculum goal on page 109 to be a novel concept. As I continued reading, I also liked the idea of using the essential questions as diagnostic tools both before and during a given unit (pg. 114). The last point of particular interest that I found in this chapter was the indictment of those who use Bloom’s Taxonomy “as a framework for differentiation” (pg. 120). The way it is described, the prevailing method of teaching struggling learners seems obviously counterproductive, given its insistence on focusing only on tasks that give no effort to provide for higher-level thinking. With this in mind, I can surely picture myself actively trying to stay away from this pervasive practice, as it seems to have virtually no merit, keeping those struggling individuals perpetually at the bottom of the intellectual barrel.

Tyler S
As a pretty avid reader, I have come across many examples of teachers and students interacting in ways that are much different than we often do now. In many classrooms today, teachers simply relay information to students. In that sense, schools are basically useless. They could just as easily post that information online, or send out daily lists of notes or key terms for students to read up on. In the books I mentioned earlier a different type of learning can be seen. When describing these learning environments, the teachers often interact much more with the students. They aren't simply providing information, they are arguing back and fourth with students, or teaching lessons through clever examples without the students even realizing at the time that is what the teacher was doing. In the UbD book, the idea of uncovering content as opposed to covering content sparked those memories in my head of all those great teachers, fictional or otherwise, that I had read about. To be an effective and useful teacher, you need to get the ideas across. If someone understands the big idea, the specifics become extremely easy to learn, whereas if the teacher just gives you the specifics there is no guarantee that the big idea, the entire purpose behind giving those specifics, will even be learned by the students.

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Kaitlin T.
Tomlinson discusses the following main concepts in chapter seven: the importance of asking essential questions, using the six facets (explain, interpret, apply, perspective, empathy, self-knowledge) to individualize lesson plans, and the incorporating the WHERETO model/framework. These concepts will help to keep students focused throughout the lesson plan and/or unit. By asking essential questions at the beginning of a lesson, students will know exactly what to be listening and reading for. The WHERETO model will help me track my students’ progress and will allow me to see where exactly their struggles lie within my plan.

Jen R.
Chapter seven of UbD/DI deals primarily with the concept of WHERETO. Each letter of the acronym WHERETO stands for something important students should be taught to have a better understanding of certain concepts or ideas. Chapter seven indicated that the WHERETO concept represent a framework that makes it possible to teach in a diverse classroom. Chapter seven also reviews the six facets of understanding, which are: explain, interpret, apply, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. These six facets are important to keep in mind because they allow students to demonstrate their understanding of a topic in several different ways.