The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units

Citation

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2011). The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units. ASCD.

Chapter Summary

This is a workbook of about 120 pages, not a book of theory. After an introduction it has eight modules, lettered A to H, followed by an afterword. The publisher states that the modules are organized around version 2.0 of the UbD unit template and resemble a UbD design workshop: each module explains key ideas and provides guiding exercises, worksheets and design tips, sample unit designs, review criteria with self-assessment prompts, and a list of further resources. Readers may work through the modules in order or skip around. ASCD also offers a free download that reproduces the book's figures (worksheets and examples) and adds further worksheets and a set of frequently asked questions for Modules B–H.

Introduction

The introduction includes an outline of the modules set against the three stages of backward design. Modules A–D concern the design process as a whole; Modules E and F deal with Stage 1 (desired results), Module G with Stage 2 (evidence) and Module H with Stage 3 (the learning plan).

Module A: The Big Ideas of UbD

The conceptual starting point. Its figures illustrate the logic of backward design with a non-academic example (learning to drive in heavy traffic), summarize "UbD in a nutshell" (the three stages and the eight tenets of UbD), and ask what understanding means, both in general and for specific topics. A worksheet asks readers to recall the most effective learning experiences they have had and to turn their features into criteria for unit design.

Module B: The UbD Template

Introduces template 2.0 and shows it in use. The examples include unpacking standards for Stage 1, the unit design standards used for review, and sample units across subjects (driver's education, social studies, algebra, music, literature, climate, visual arts, health and physical education, history), some shown before and after redesign with UbD. The accompanying FAQ explains that the template was revised to give more weight to long-term transfer goals and to coding the alignment of Stages 2 and 3, and that the authors do not recommend planning isolated lessons apart from units.

Module C: Starting Points

Design can start anywhere: with content standards, an important topic or skill, a key text, a favourite activity or a key test. The module lists common problems in unit design, shows how each entry point leads into the template, and includes advice on using the textbook wisely. Its FAQ stresses that the template records the finished design but does not fix the order in which designers think.

Module D: Developing an Initial Unit Sketch

A short module for producing a first draft: a simple three-stage sketch, illustrated with a nutrition unit, an "if ..., then" worksheet linking the stages, and a prompt to state the point of the unit. Its FAQ explains why the approach is called "backward" and places it in a line running from Ralph Tyler through Bloom and Gagné.

Module E: Different Types of Learning Goals

The first of two modules on Stage 1. It distinguishes four types of goal and separates understandings from factual knowledge, with worksheets on transfer goals, meaning-making goals and coding Stage 1 goals, and on what each goal type implies for assessment and teaching. The FAQ discusses where drill and memorization still have a place.

Module F: Essential Questions and Understandings

How to write the two signature elements of Stage 1. Worksheets distinguish essential questions from knowledge questions, ask what makes a question essential, and help designers move from topics and skills to big ideas and then to understandings framed as full sentences ("students will understand that ..."). The FAQ suggests two to four essential questions for a typical unit.

Module G: Determining Evidence of Understanding and Developing Assessment Tasks

Stage 2. It applies a two-question validity test to proposed assessments and uses the six facets of understanding (explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy and self-understanding) to generate performance tasks, with question starters and performance verbs for each facet. The FAQ compares the facets with Bloom's taxonomy and with Webb's Depth of Knowledge levels.

Module H: Learning for Understanding

Stage 3. Learning events are coded by whether they serve acquisition, meaning-making or transfer (the "A-M-T" scheme), with matching teaching roles and action verbs, an example on measures of central tendency, and the nutrition unit's Stage 3 coded in this way. The FAQ explains why the authors prefer this scheme to Bloom's hierarchy.

Afterword

A closing piece that follows Module H.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Modules A–D: The design process

• Backward design: planning from desired results to evidence to learning activities, rather than starting from activities.
• Three stages: desired results, evidence and learning plan, which must be aligned for the unit to work.
• UbD template 2.0: the one-page format in which the finished unit is recorded.
• Unit design standards: criteria for reviewing a draft unit, used for self-assessment and peer review.

Modules E–F: Stage 1

• Transfer goals: what students should eventually be able to do on their own with what they learn.
• Meaning-making: understanding big ideas so that facts and skills make sense.
• Essential questions: open-ended questions that recur and invite inquiry and argument.
• Understandings: big ideas stated as specific generalizations that students must come to grasp.

Modules G–H: Stages 2 and 3

• Six facets of understanding: explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy and self-understanding, used as indicators of understanding.
• GRASPS: a scheme for writing authentic performance tasks (goal, role, audience, situation, performance, standards).
• A-M-T: coding learning events as acquisition, meaning-making or transfer.
• WHERETO: a checklist of elements for an engaging and effective learning plan.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Built for doing. Every module pairs short explanation with worksheets, examples and review criteria, so a reader can design a unit while reading. The publisher explicitly addresses readers without access to formal training.
• Many worked examples across subjects. Module B alone includes sample units in a wide range of school subjects, and the before-and-after units show concretely what redesign changes.
• Free supporting material. The official download reproduces the figures as usable forms and adds FAQs that answer practical objections, such as rigid pacing guides, the place of memorization, and the relation to Bloom's taxonomy.
• Flexible entry. Module C and its FAQ make clear that teachers can start from standards, a text, a favourite activity or a test, which lowers the barrier for experienced teachers who do not plan from goals.

Limitations

• Depends on the main book. The guide summarizes UbD rather than arguing for it, and its own summaries refer readers back to Understanding by Design (2nd edition) for the full treatment of each idea. Readers who want the rationale need that book too.
• Practice over critique. As a design manual by the framework's authors, it does not engage with criticism of backward design or of standards-based planning.
• Template-specific. The book is organized around template 2.0; schools using other planning formats will need to translate.
• Aimed at school teaching. The audience is K–16 educators, and most examples come from school subjects; university teachers will find fewer models in their own disciplines.

Where It Fits in the Course

Among the books in this curriculum and instruction course, this is the hands-on design manual. Ornstein and Hunkins's Curriculum: Foundations, Principles, and Issues is a survey of curriculum as a field, covering its foundations and the principles of design, development and evaluation; it places backward design among other planning models. Wesley Null's Curriculum: From Theory to Practice and A. V. Kelly's The Curriculum: Theory and Practice are introductions that ask what a curriculum is for; Kelly's contrast between curricula built around content, objectives or processes is a useful lens for judging UbD's goal-first approach.

Flinders and Thornton's The Curriculum Studies Reader collects original writing by figures including Tyler, whom the UbD FAQ names as an early source of backward design, and William Pinar's What Is Curriculum Theory? represents the reconceptualist tradition, which treats curriculum as something other than planning procedures. Reading Pinar after working with this guide shows how differently the field can understand the word "curriculum".

How to Use This Book

The publisher names four audiences: educators who have had some UbD training and want to continue alone, readers of Understanding by Design without access to training, university students in curriculum courses, and administrators and coordinators who lead UbD work. No prerequisites are required, but knowing the main book helps.

A practical plan for a course assignment:

• Read the Introduction and Module A first to understand the three stages and the vocabulary.
• Choose a unit you will teach or have taught, then use Module C to find your entry point and Module D to draft a quick sketch.
• Work through Stage 1 with Modules E and F, writing transfer goals, understandings and two to four essential questions.
• Design assessment with Module G, using the six facets and GRASPS to write at least one performance task.
• Plan learning with Module H, coding activities as acquisition, meaning-making or transfer.
• Review the finished unit against the design standards in Module B, ideally with a peer.

Download ASCD's free forms before starting, since they let you complete the worksheets digitally, and read the FAQs for each module after a first draft, when the objections they address will be most relevant.