Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition

Brilliant concept and one I think all educators should be able to demonstrate, but holy cow if there’s one thing the authors don’t understand it’s efficiency. They could have easily left out the absurd amount of redundancy, nixed the drama of needing to prove your ideas are right and others are wrong, and packaged this puppy up into a simple little book full of useful information.But they didn’t. They went full JK Rowling on it instead. If you enjoy reading hours of fluff and deciphering scattered understandings and giggling and industry drama, this book is for you. If you’re looking for something that’s focused and will teach you everything to want to know in a clean and concise manner and get you back to focusing your time on the whole purpose for this book in the first place—your students, than this is not the book for you. There are many many other quality resources that better teach the practice of UbD.

I at first felt very daunted by the concept of backward design (i.e. Understanding by Design, or UBD). It looked really complicated, it sounded like "teaching to the test", and I thought for sure that it would add an ungodly amount of extra hours to my lesson planning. I stubbornly claimed (at first) that I would NEVER switch from how I was already doing things! However, after I took a class in Understanding by Design, I realized just how GOOD this method actually is. So, before I go any further with my review, let me strongly encourage anyone looking into buying this book to see if you can also take a class in this methodology or even just attend a conference session about it -- there are also, sometimes, decent webinars about it. UBD can be very overwhelming at first, especially if you're used to a different method in your curriculum design and/or lesson planning.As I learned after implementing this in all of the classes that I taught for a year, UBD does take more time at first. I found that by making a template in my word processing program, I was able to cut the design process length down considerably; also, you get faster as you get more experienced. I do NOT recommend using this as a means for creating daily lesson plans, as the format is so detailed that you'd have little time for anything else. However, for unit plans, this is a fantastic method (and the way it's done, you then don't need to write out separate daily lesson plans). Everything is measurable! Everything is balanced! You plan the assessment methods right as you figure out the content, so that you start out from the beginning knowing exactly how you'll prove that students have learned, as well as well as what they will learn. There is emphasis, too, on building in opportunities for metacognition, which is so important if you want to train students into becoming more masterful learners. From the students' standpoint, they get much more organized classes out of this, and they also have a much better idea of exactly what is expected of them. Furthermore, by me getting so organized about making sure my units had all the necessary parts, I ended up teaching much, much better.I used UBD as a high school teacher, but now that I'm in a PhD program, I am using it in the creation of college courses (100-level electives). The framework makes so much sense and it is surprisingly helpful to my own ingenuity and creativity. Some people fear UBD-style course design because they think it'll make them too formulaic as teachers, but I've found the exact opposite to be true. It alters the way that you think about lessons as much as it does how you create/plan them. Finally, I found that my job satisfaction really increased when I started using this methodology, largely because my output was so much better and I knew for a fact that it was better. It makes a huge difference to how you go about a job when you know that you're doing it well.I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to become a master teacher (or even to current master teachers who want to be even better). However, as I mentioned, I also recommend that you don't just get the book on its own. Try to find some form of additional training to help you understand it better and visualize better how things work. The book is a great resource, for sure, but it is a LOT to take in, especially if you are not already familiar with backward design.

I had to read this textbook for a Social Studies content course for my Masters in Secondary Education course. Overall, the process of UbD is a brilliant process that is helpful for many teachers. I think the tips that the textbook offers are great and can be helpful for all teachers. The only critique that I have for this textbook is that it is extremely wordy and they jazz up the language at times to make it seem more academic. It would be cool to have the authors write a series of UbD for the different content areas, so all the examples and frameworks would be directed for that specialty. I know that I would have loved to have more history or social studies examples.

I think the ideas are valid, but it seems the authors are overcomplicating the content and concepts. Everything that needs to be said could be done in half as many pages. It's ridiculously redundant.

Definitely a must have for any educator. Wiggins and McTighe are almost the pioneers in this field and thought of backwards design (Robert Tyler first thought of the concept in his published work from 1947) and their concepts are easy to implement and are what I would call a no-brainer. As in it should be something that all teachers are already implementing in their lesson and unit planning already. However, we all know that it is not already in the forefront of every educators mind or else there would not be a need for this book. This book will definitely teach the educator or potential educator how to start to think about the goals of a lesson and then to plan the lessons on how to get each student to those specific goals (backwards design). It is an easy concept and once understood and fully grasped by the educator he/she can start to educate their students in a way in which the students will benefit by truly gaining meaningful knowledge from the course they are taking with the educator and be able to apply the knowledge and demonstrate understanding.

I had to read this book for a graduate course, and it is, quite possibly, one of the most enlightening education texts I have ever read. I bought the kindle version for the course, but I'm planning on buying the print edition so that I can re-read it, with more notes. It's that good. I wish I had read it years ago, and I have found it's impacted my teaching from chapter one. I'm encouraging my principal to offer it as a book study.

A really useful book on backward curriculum design. It encompasses a great deal of theory and research, but it is presented in an accessible style. This is a very useful book for any teacher or school leader devising a curriculum.

Great pedagogy

Well written and structured. A lot of useful information and insights. Well researched too.

As a new teacher this book provides lots of templates to use when planning. You don't have to read each chapter in depth unless there's something you want to expand on, the templates provide plenty of guidance.

Wiggins and McTighe address how curriculum can be coherent as a curriculum designer orient the curriculum towards the educational ends. Essential Questions are very good strategy to align the curriculum to the educational purpose and also to provoke learners for learning through and beyond the curriculum. I highly recommend this book to any educator.