Understanding: A Definition by Terry Heick Assessing understanding might be the most complex task an educator or academic institution is tasked with. Unfortunately, professional development gives a lower level of attention to developing quality assessments, training that is rarely commensurate with this complexity. The challenge of assessment is no less than figuring out what a…
Education 3.0 has many facets from technology tools to shifting roles for teachers. But more than anything else, it’s is about students.
Characteristics of quality learning feedback: being goal-referenced, transparent, actionable, user-friendly, timely, ongoing, and consistent.
One of Grant Wiggins’ lasting lessons is that in order to transfer their learning, students need to understand “big ideas.”
The need to belong, the desire to be understood, and the instinct to understand are universal human emotions that mean everything.
Well-meaning local change agents and schools continue to make mistakes in how Understanding by Design (UbD) is implemented.
Depth of Knowledge frameworks can be useful for planning curriculum, designing assessments, or making judgments about student reading, writing, and math.
Want To Transform Education? Start In Your Classroom. by Terry Heick If it’s a standards-based, outcomes-based, institutionally-centered (and nationally participative) game we want, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better combination than Understanding by Design units (i.e., Wiggins) anchored around power standards (e.g., Strong, Silver, Perini, Dufour) that are then delivered through differentiated instruction (i.e.,…
For starters, less is more. As you design curriculum and instruction, give students just enough to get them going, then get out of their way.
Measuring understanding might be the most complex thing teachers do. Unfortunately, PD gives little attention to making quality assessments.
There are many forms of performance tasks: short and long constructed response, drawings and videos, interview.
Everything I Knew My Second Year Of Teaching My 2nd year of teaching, my head was swimming. I had just gotten back from an ASCD conference–with a Marzano pre-conference and a heavy dose of Understanding by Design, Tomlinson’s ideas on differentiation, and some sessions on literacy. In spite of all of the great information I…