AnyBook4Less.com
Find the Best Price on the Web
Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Developed by Fintix
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |  
 
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money

Understanding by Design

Please fill out form in order to compare prices
Title: Understanding by Design
by Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe, Jan McTighe
ISBN: 0-87120-313-8
Publisher: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development
Pub. Date: 25 October, 1998
Format: Paperback
Volumes: 1
List Price(USD): $20.95
Your Country
Currency
Delivery
Include Used Books
Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble
Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 4.83 (6 reviews)

Customer Reviews

Rating: 5
Summary: Completely changed the way I look at teaching
Comment: I first learned of this excellent book at a professional development workshop that was offered by my school. I was immediately driven to buy it and learn all that I could about the backwards design process. One year later I find myself planning ALL of my units around enduring understandings and essential questions. It really makes sense that students can demonstrate understanding in various ways, and that it is our duty as teachers to allow them to do that with as many opportunities as possible. This year I finally feel that my students are really connecting with what I want them to learn, and they are seeing the "big picture." I will never design a unit the "traditional" way again!

Rating: 5
Summary: A good read
Comment: McTighe and Williams successfully expound on a subject often mired in philosophical debate: how to assess understanding and evaluate true learning. It is an outstanding framework for developing curriculum intent on extending beyond traditional methods of teaching and preaching to students. The authors contend that true understanding can be assessed by measuring performance against six facets of understanding: explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. These facets are vital to developing curriculum and the authors do an outstanding job of presenting the material in charts, and exercises, making a difficult topic easier to understand. Comparing and contrasting covering material and uncovering knowledge serves to help teachers think like assessors, rather than activity planners. Helpful design tools are included throughout the book and teachers are instructed to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching with thoughtful and probing questions.

Understanding by Design will serve as my guide for evaluating my own effectiveness as a teacher. I expect to rely on it to gauge my own competency in developing and executing lessons. Examples throughout the book illuminating the practical applications of each of the six facets are well organized and easy to follow. I found the use of keywords and charts especially helpful in furthering my own understanding of how to uncover knowledge. I am confident that if I remain faithful to the tenets of this book, I will be able to put into practice what I believe constitutes effective strategies for learning: student-centered activities which call upon students to question assumptions, draw upon past knowledge, and advance understanding through incremental learning

Rating: 5
Summary: ideology you can put to work
Comment: "The student ...(believes).. that there is neat and clean knowledge out there and it is my job to learn (i.e., memorize) and use it as directed. A key challenge in teaching for understanding is to make the student's view of knowledge ... more sophisticated by revealing the problems, controversies, and assumptions that lie behind much given and seemingly unproblematic knowledge."

I found this book on the way to another book, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Professional educators often feel the dichotomy between meeting national, state, and local goals and standards, and the real teaching that seems to have nothing to do with district benchmarks or standardized tests.

These authors propose a "backwards design process" that begins with the standards or outcomes desired, but then using these as guidelines to developing essential questions & understandings that actually matter beyond the classroom, then structuring the curriculum around these posed questions. They discuss the difference between covering the material, and using questions to 'uncover' the material. They using first hand examples of practice and texts to clearly exemplify what they mean. I found it exciting, inspiring, and extremely helpful.

Similar Books:

Title: The Understanding by Design Handbook
by Jay McTighe, Grant Wiggins
ISBN: 0871203405
Publisher: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development
Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999
List Price(USD): $31.95
Title: Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
by Robert J. Marzano, Jane E. Pollock, Debra J. Pickering
ISBN: 0871205041
Publisher: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development
Pub. Date: January, 2001
List Price(USD): $24.95
Title: Mapping the Big Picture: Integrating Curriculum & Assessment K-12
by Heidi Hayes Jacobs
ISBN: 0871202867
Publisher: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development
Pub. Date: June, 1997
List Price(USD): $16.95
Title: How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition
by John Bransford, Ann L. Brown, Rodney R. Cocking, National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Developments in the Scie, National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Learning Research and Ed
ISBN: 0309070368
Publisher: National Academy Press
Pub. Date: 15 September, 2000
List Price(USD): $24.95
Title: Results Fieldbook: Practical Strategies from Dramatically Improved Schools
by Michael J. Schmoker, Mike Schmoker
ISBN: 0871205211
Publisher: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development
Pub. Date: September, 2001
List Price(USD): $24.95

Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!

Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments

Powered by Apache