Analyzing Instructional Units in light of HPL and UbD

I'm not sure if we were supposed to blog about this handout before or after the next class, but in case it was before... As a high school English teacher I generally design curriculum around books to be taught. The example I brought for use in class is part of a unit on Huck Finn. The goal for our department is to use the given book as a vehicle to touch on all five strands - reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing - of the CCCS. So for example I would plan a series of activities using Huck Finn to do that. As regards Question Two, I feel I am fairly learner-centered. I often tailor lessons and methods to specific classes or individuals. I also do a lot of writing ion class which provides abundant opportunities for differentiation. Regarding Question Three, I am not at all coverage-oriented. I don't even do the same material in the same class from year to year, and I often change assessments to reflect that particular class's response to a piece of literature. (Guess that means I'm not using backward design that well, eh?) I am not as certain about whether or not I am activity-oriented. I would assume no teacher designs an activity to intentionally be hands on/minds off, so obviously if I am doing this I don't know. Again, I need to know more/think more about this one. Regarding Question Four, I think I do generally start with the desired result in mind, but may be not as thorough on the other two steps as I might be. I doubt, if I really closely examined the evidence, that all the learning experiences I plan would have a clear and direct relationship to the desired results. Some might exist in isolation. I also think there can be multiple desired results (and this will likely be one of my problems adapting to backward design). Example: I teach AP juniors. One year I might have a class that's really into linguistic issues. They may care about language and dialect and how Huck Finn sounds. Other classes may focus on thematic issues. The classes looking at theme may still sort of subdivide. One group may latch on to gender issues and see Huck as a sexist book. Others may want to spend a lot of time looking at race questions it raises. I might adjust my teaching and my assessment to accommodate any of these, not latch on to a plan and say "we have to get here."

Practical UbD

This will be brief, but I just want to express a hope (Prof. Goldstein are you reading?) that we will do some work with really practical applications of UbD. As I reflect on how my coursework here at MSU will help me as an administrator, I can think of only one course (Clinical Supervision, in which we watched tape of teachers working, wrote observations complete with pre and post interviews and them discussed them) in which there was a practical application. It's wonderful to study curriculum or educational theory, but we all know what the job is once we're in the big chair. If someone asked me to rewrite curriculum at this exact moment, I feel as though I would be no better prepared to do that than I was before my coursework began. This shouldn't surprise me, I suppose. I recall one course as an undergradute - Methods of Teaching English - in which there was any useful practical application. Where my other professors would say "Rousseau would agree" "Freire believes..." "Dewey's idea was..." Prof. Becker would say "Try that in a high school classroom and kids will eat you alive." Now that's useful advice. Ed. Psych, Philosophical Orientation to Education, Teacher, School, and Society - all worthy classes, but nothing in them even remotely prepared me for that first day I faced kids. I have this vague fear that history is repeating itself as I prepare to move into administration.

2+2=4 but only for 45

I know this will be something that makes its way into the individual component of my CCCS's paper, but the more I listen to these presentations and read about UbD, the more I keep coming to the same conclusion - teaching different disciplines in isolation is bad design. Really good curriculum design would be about the "biggest big picture" which is that all disciplines are related. Assessment should be project-based and those projects should synthesize knowledge from different disciplines. A few years ago, my son participated in a middle school G&T program. I recall a project he did which at its core was a photography project. But completing it required historical knowledge, art aptitude, reading and writing skills, and others. I remember thinking, "Why isn't all teaching like this?" We certainly have to draw on knowledge from all disciplines to function as citizens. But the traditional school has one learn all these skills in isolation as though they are independent of one another. It irks me when I hear a student ask a teacher, "does spelling count?" The correct answer is yes, of course, but that teacher's answer may be no. Why? Because it isn't English class! What have we taught that student? We've taught him that proper use of language is only important for 45 minutes a day. Can 2+2=7 in my world after I leave math class?