Reading, Blogging, and UbD

According to Tom Kuhlman, “Instructional design is more than just putting information in front of the learners” (2016). While reflecting on my design experiences over the last couple of weeks, this quote rang true for me. There is so much more that goes into course design than I was previously aware of. Before embarking on my journey through this assignment, I believe I was guilty of doing just that: “putting information in front of the learners,” but after my experimentation with both Fink’s 3-Column Model (Fink, 2003) and the Understanding by Design method (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) I have gained a whole new understanding and appreciation for the importance of deliberate and calculated instructional planning.

I began my exploration of new design methodologies last week with Fink’s 3-Column Model (Fink, 2003) and found it to be a comprehensive and thorough method for beautifully designing a course while ensuring the alignment of learning goals, activities, and assessments. The straightforward layout of the template forced me to eliminate unnecessary information and to refine the goals for my unit until they were seamlessly intertwined with the expected learning outcomes. I was quite pleased with the end result.

Although I was content with my work in connection with Fink’s 3-Column Model (Fink, 2003), I noticed that the completed outline was very general in nature, and additional work would be needed to design the specific components of the instructional plan. I knew what my goal was, what we were going to do, how we were going to get there, and the tools we would use along the way. However, the unit as a whole was one huge elephant that needed to be broken into bite-size pieces. A different approach was necessary to create a solid implementation plan. At this point, I shifted over to the Understanding by Design method (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) to see if it could help to break the unit down into manageable steps.

At first glance, the UbD template (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) was quite overwhelming for me. There were so many moving parts: understanding, essential questions, students will know, students will be able to, performance tasks, other evidence, and reflection. All of this is explored before you even get to the creation of the learning plan. I had to draft and read and revise multiple times before I felt I had it right. Aligning so many different categories requires much trial and error. I’ll admit, I really disliked the template as I was working through the process, but now that my unit is complete, I see the value in it. Since I have laid out all the pieces of my blogging unit, I won’t have to plan any lessons for several weeks. My TEKS, learning objectives, essential questions, and activities are all located in one place. Even though the creation of the document seems time consuming up front, I believe it will save me time in the long run. In addition, it appears to be more comprehensive and guarantees the alignment of objectives, activities, and assessments. This is a rarity, a facet of the job that teachers constantly struggle to conquer, and the UbD may solve this problem.

Of course, nothing will ever be the perfect solution to instructional design since learning models are continually growing and evolving, but after experimenting with these two methods, I believe there are benefits to both. Fink’s 3-Column Model (Fink, 2003) delivers a good overview of the layout of a unit and provides students with a clear idea of what to expect throughout the process. I believe it would be a useful way to provide a course overview for students in a syllabus or course catalog. The Ubd template (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) is more thorough and comprehensive and allows educators to align the pieces of a unit step-by-step. Doing more upfront work via this method will allow for less planning later and more time to focus on the observation and assessment of the students. This a huge win. I believe the UbD is a better solution for K-12 educators since the instructional year is longer, and administrators have certain expectations regarding curriculum alignment. If several UbD documents were created and posted in a district’s learning management system, they would provide guidance and consistency all year long among teachers in the same level and discipline.

Aside from the two different purposes these methods serve, they seem to have one commonality, their emphasis on backward design. Backward design requires educators to begin with end in mind, and this reverse method seems to produce instruction that is more adequately aligned since it maintains a focus on the desired outcome. Since beginning with the outcome in mind is so vital to successful teaching and learning, I don’t believe you can go wrong with either of these design methods. I know the exploration of both has provided me the tools I need to successfully implement my innovation plan. I now have a detailed plan I will implement moving forward.

While working through this process of experimentation with Fink’s 3-Column Method (Fink, 2003) and the UbD (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), I realized that I have been incorrectly designing my instruction. I tend to be a teacher who looks for interesting activities and then plans lessons or a unit to go with them when I should be looking at the learning goal first and then finding the activities. Teaching is such a complex job; it’s always surprising to discover you are doing things wrong even after being in the profession for several years, and I wonder how teachers sometimes become set in their ways. It seems that being an educator requires life-long learning, continual monitoring and adjustments, and above all else, flexibility and fluidity. In conclusion, I know instructional design is just one small facet of the professional refinement I need to achieve, and I look forward to exploring more ways in which I can become a more effective leader and educator.

References

Bigstock Images. (n.d.). Social media internet technology concept [Digital image]. Retrieved December 11, 2016, from http://editor.wix.com/html/editor/web/renderer/edit/d8c1ad84-5453-412c-b57c-3c852af4e8d1?metaSiteId=43773c15-ed69-4faf-9640-2125be484d19&editorSessionId=5AFEC928-CECC-465F-9DA8-CD5DDB3D0FD4

Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Kuhlman, T. (2016). About Tom | The Rapid E-Learning Blog. Retrieved from http://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/about-tom/

Texas Education Agency. (2010, February 22). 19 TAC Chapter 110, Subchapter C. Retrieved from http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter110/ch110c.html

Wiggins, G., & Mctighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design, Expanded 2Nd Edition. Danvers, MA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.