Student: So for the first one, you can write down 7.5.

Chuck: Prior to UBD, I didn’t have as much cohesiveness. I was teaching content, and I was covering material. I would do some fun, exciting labs, and then test. Understanding by Design allows me to be way more purposeful and deliberate about what I want my students to understand, and how am I going to assess that.

Student: So if the nutrients are there, and like the pH is too high or too low, the plant wouldn’t grow, because the pH isn’t right.

Mike: The vision of MRH is to prepare kids for what the world’s going to be like when they leave. Understanding by Design, as a school-wide philosophy is helping our kids prepare for the 21st Century.

Chuck: Understanding by Design is a curriculum planning instrument. It’s backwards design in a sense.

Mike: You get the big ideas first, what do you want the kids to come away with? And then we work backwards, what would be the final test, the project? And then you create the individual lessons that all aim toward that test, which is ultimately aimed toward the big ideas.

Mike: We’re going to do the final Lit Circle discussion for “I’m Down.”

Student: So the discussion question is, “Culture is both a unifying and divisive force in our lives. Mishna experiences this as she attempts to fit into a variety of cultures.”

Haily: We’re reading the book, “I’m Down.” It’s a memoir about a girl named Mishna growing up in two different cultures like the white culture and the African-American culture.

Mike: The Enduring Understandings for each unit are not content or skill specific for English. They’re big ideas that I think the kids need to know when they go out in the real world. So, “Reading and writing memoirs helps us understand humanity.” Another understanding is, “Culture is a divisive and unifying factor.” That’s a real interesting one.

Student: I think it was more unifying. Her dad was finally at peace with who she wanted to be, and the culture that she chose to be a part of.

Andrew: And then “Essential Questions,” the teacher gives you at the beginning of the unit, then by the end you should be able to answer it based on what you learned. It’s usually more open where you can explain more, not just like “Yes” or “No.”

Student: Every person’s life, it shapes how they are. And although the experiences might be traumatic, it just shapes how you are, and it, I think–

Mike: You write the questions and understandings the right way, kids will be constructing their own knowledge, which is the point.

Student: She actually knows what she wants out of life and she’s like working hard to get it.

Student: Right.

Chuck: Every single teacher here writes their own units and courses. You take into account the standards, but ultimately, what are the core ideas we want our students to walk away with?

Nathan: The “Enduring Understandings” and the “Essential Questions,” they can help people stay on track and understand what the purpose of our assignments and our lives are. If they look up on the wall and see, “Well, this is what we’re trying to do.”

Chuck: So we’re going to pick up with our lessons that we started with last week on Energy Flow. But now we’re going to talk a little bit about Cycling. And that’s–

Chuck: The big idea is Chemical Cycling, and its importance to ecosystem health. To get there, we did a soil testing lab. They were expected to test chemical properties of soil for different unknowns, and figure out which one of those four was the most suitable to set up a community garden.

Najwa: So we tested the pH levels in like different soils. We tested the phosphate and potassium, nitrogen.

Nathan: All those different variables affect how plants can survive and thrive.

Chuck: After they finished their tests, they input their data into spreadsheet, and then they discussed which of these sites might be the best.

Student: The optimal pH range for most plants is between 5.5 and 7.

Nathan: Every [inaudible] has an average of over 7.

Chuck: So having the appropriate pH helps–

Student: Helps the plants grow and helps more nutrients get into the soil.

Chuck: Students are going to leave high school and they’re going to forget the steps of photosynthesis, or the parts of a cell, but if the understand the larger ideas, then that’s really what I’m after. Now that I’ve identified what I want my students to walk away with on a deeper level, that helps guide me every day when I’m teaching.

Mike: My whole philosophy changed because UBD, it’s kid-centered. I’m not the center or the focus of the room. If I did my job, the kids are kind of teaching themselves.

Schools That Work

Maplewood Richmond Heights High School