Week 2 Assignment #3: Understanding by Design

       Understanding by Design is an approach to curriculum that first focuses of setting goals so that one can then prepare for how to reach those goals. The term "Backward Design" comes from the idea of establishing the intended outcomes and working backwards from there. Generally speaking, the goal is related to students gaining an understanding of information so that they are able to utilize and transfer that understanding to different situations. At this point, teachers are also considering what standards are in place and what is to be expected. After the goals for understanding are established, a teacher then begins to think about what "evidence" would should that the goals were achieved and that students have gained the understanding that they were intended to. After this, a teacher then prepares by then thinking about assessment and instruction, and establishing what will occur in the classroom. Part of this is considering what methods and instructional activities would result in that "evidence" being the outcome. When Wiggins uses the example of utilizing understanding by design in a math classroom, it seems to be a way of thinking that expands the amount of interested students because it focuses on creative and critical thinking about the content. Backward design is a planning framework that teaches students to perform effectively on their own and allows them to hopefully derive meaning from what was learned.