UbD Chapter 3 Response

This chapter was a comfort to read because it addresses many of the anxieties I have regarding Common Core Standards and suggests strategies for successfully covering a wide range of content (which is demanded by the standards) through the backward design model.  One thing I certainly don’t want to do as a teacher is make a “chronological march through the textbook” (28), because it would be miserable for my students and even miserable for myself (imagine going through the same book year after year!).  Fortunately backward design can help to prevent this while still ensuring that I cover all the standards (as long as I do it effectively… I’m sure that I will need to practice it many times before I can master it).  And, because I am a “clipboard” learner, I appreciate the structure that the backward design planning template provides.  At the same time, however, I was relieved to read that “[b]ackward design does not demand a rigid sequence” (32), meaning that I do not have follow the template in order when I design my units.  Too little structure is nerve-wracking to me, but so is too much structure.  For these reasons, I feel that backward design will be a very useful tool for me as a future teacher.

I also found the section on integrating differentiated instruction into the backward design model to be valuable because it acted as a reminder that simply planning for content and for the standards isn’t always enough.  I think it’s definitely important to provide more than one form of assessment and that they should be accounted for when designing a unit.