The workshop is over, and many staff naturally want to know: “What is going to happen next? How will we follow up on our good conversations?” This is of course a key question! So, how will you build upon the day? How will you avoid cynical comments about “This, too, shall pass”? How can you keep the momentum going? How can you show your colleagues that you are serious about long-term, focused,and well-supported renewal?

On the next pages we offer an array of possible actions and approaches for follow-up. We also propose some ways in which you can free up the necessary time to do the work well. This latter step is vital: you need to take substantive and symbolic action to signal that you are serious about ongoing professional development by making more time for it. The allocation of time – linked to some product and performance goals for the use of that time – is key to sending the message that you are serious. Finally, we offer some tongue-in-cheek thoughts about How to Kill UbD – or, hopefully not.

The three ‘big ideas’ of effective follow-up are –

  • Think big, but act small and act now
  • Don’t talk ideas to death: work toward a product goal ASAP
  • Get feedback early and often – that’s how everyone improves

A. Examples of 10 possible ‘next step’ actions: Design/Analyze/Research

  1. Design a model unit in teams. Ask staff to commit to a timeline of the design of a unit or unit elements. e.g. try using essential questions next week; have a complete unit by semester’s end, designed and piloted, etc. Ensure that participants not only try out a piece of design, but that they report what worked and what didn’t to teams/department/staff in meetings.
  2. Design a model scoring rubric (supported by work samples) that makes “understanding” a clear, prominent, and explicit aim. Have staff use the rubric and work sample models (‘anchors’) to clarify for students that the aim is understanding, not recall. When teaching, show students models of work indicative of understanding or its absence, and help them develop a clear understanding of the differences.
  1. Design a transfer task for a key Standard (e.g. a complex novel-looking math problem; a document-based question in history; a test of reading strategy and skill on a new piece of non-fiction, etc.).Analyze the Standard carefully: if that’s the Standard, what would count as performance evidence of meeting the Standard? Then, sketch out a task. Design a protocol for administering the task in which students initially receive no hints or scaffold, but can receive hints if they truly need them. Use a graduated-prompted rubric to score the results (4 = needed no hints, 3 = needed 1-2 minor hints or reminders, 2 = needed reminders and hints all along the way, 1 = even with much scaffolding could not produce an adequate response.)
  2. Design a Gradual-Release-of-Responsibility unit. Use the 4-step process (I do, you watch; I do, you help; You do, I help; You do, I watch) to design a unit or set of units deliberately aiming at autonomous transfer of student learning. Use a graduated-prompting rubric to score student performance.
  3. Analyze model and typical units against UbD design standards. Have teams/departmentsassess units or lessons using our peer review process against the criteria for “good design” (see the UbD design standards, or use your own). Have teams report out what they learned from studying and self-assessing units against standards.
  1. Analyze local assessments. For a targeted time frame, (e.g. the month of November or the next marking period) collect all the assessments given in a building. Then, taking a sample of the assessments (e.g. every 4th assessment item) analyze the type and validity of the assessments. Use credible criteria to rate the assessment (e.g. Bloom’s Taxonomy, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, the six facets of understanding, state standards, etc.) Make 1-2 specific recommendations for improving the quality of local assessment, based on the findings.
  1. Analyze local grading. Examine trends in local teacher grading to identify the validity of grades (given Mission, state standards, critical thinking, understanding, etc.). Compare local grading standards to state performance standards (e.g. state-wide writing, college freshman exam scoring, etc.) – i.e. how predictive are local grades of later important performance? Also, look at cross-teacher consistency by having teachers grade the same student work on their own, then discuss their grading in groups.
  1. Analyze results on a common assessment that you design, making sure that the assessment includes higher-order as well as lower-order questions. Which items are the most difficult? Where are the results unsatisfactory? What specific actions should be taken in the next month to address the greatest area of need? No need to count the grade in the gradebook: what do the results tell us?
  1. Research test results: go to your local site or to the Florida FCAT, Massachusetts MCAS, or Pennsylvania PSSA websites to download their released test items with analysis. Study the results – especially the ones in Reading and Mathematics. Note the hardest questions and most common wrong answers. (All test reports in these states show the correct answer and what % of students picked which answer; they also code the purpose of each test question against the key state standard it is assessing). Which types of questions are the hardest? What are the implications? Then, pilot the same questions locally, look at the results, and discuss them in teams/departments/staff meetings.
  1. Research motivation in students. In teams, study a small group of ‘typical’ kids over the course of a day; you might shadow one student each through their day or half-day. In what work are they most motivated and engaged in class - and out of class (sports/computer games/arts)? When are they least motivated? When do students persist with a challenge and when do they quit? What general conclusions can you draw from motivation and engagement about how to make schoolwork less boring? (We have online student surveys you can use, too).

B. Freeing up time – ideas:

Action research requires that each individual or team have at least4 half-days of non-contact time spread across a year, over and above in-service training days like the one we just had together. Though training, coaching, and action research needs will obviously vary by school and by goal, making action research part of the jobis an essential part of school reform: work toward eventual changes to the contract. (See Schooling by Design for ideas on “What’s My Job When Not With Students?”)

Some ideas for creatively freeing up time are provided below:

  1. Half the faculty covers for the other half once per month on pre-assigned days; classes double up and/or teachers of “specials” plan large-group activities to free up half the staff.
  1. One hour per month of action research/design time, is set aside from currently scheduled faculty/department/team meetings and in-service days.
  1. Late start/early release once per month to permit 2 hours of work in teams.
  1. Each design team gets 2 hours per week, covered by other teams, administrators & subs.
  1. 4 days in the summer becomes part of the contract, to be scheduled by each design group.
  1. 2 hours of non-contact time are added to each Monday, traded for 3 days added to end of year.
  1. Hire 1 permanent sub per Department/Grade Level for the needed period of time.
  1. Reorganize the School Year next year - 1/2 day twice per month should be scheduled with no students; add 5 minutes to other instructional days for the minutes lost.
  1. Teachers meet for an extended lunch and resource period or assembly schedule.
  1. Providers of special group learning (Project Adventure, National Endowment for the Humanities, etc.) give assemblies to release teachers of one or more grade levels for 3 half-days per year.
  1. Hire roving subs for a day to release teams for 90 minutes each.

C. How (not) to kill UbD

Ways to Kill UbD from the
Start / Actions for Starting UbD
on the Right Foot
1. Mandate that every teacher must use UbD for ALL of their planning immediately (without sufficient training, on-going support, or structured planning time). / Think big, but start smart:
  • Work with volunteers at first
  • Ask all teachers to plan ONE unit per semester for starters.
  • Encourage teachers to work w/ a colleague or team, and begin w/ a familiar unit topic where achievement results are nor great now.
  • Provide some designated planning time.

2. Introduce UbD as this year’s focus (suggesting that UbD can be fully implemented in a year; and that last year’s initiative bears no relation to it). Thus: “This, too, shall pass.” / Develop and publish a multi-year plan that links your long-term goals to ubd strengths, and show how ubd will be slowly implemented as part of a strategic plan.
3. Attempt to implement too many initiatives simultaneously (e.g., UbD, Differentiated Instruction, Curriculum Mapping, Marzano’s “Strategies” etc.) / Develop a multi-stage multi-year plan to improve a current initiative via UbD:
  • improve map categories
  • differentiate via Essential Questions
  • unpack Standards via “big ideas”
At the very least, develop a 1-page graphic showing how all local initiatives are really a part of the same one effort (e.g. limbs of a tree, pieces of a puzzle, supports of a building, etc.)
4. Assume that staff members understand the need for UbD and/or will naturally welcome it. i.e. hurriedly prescribe before making a careful diagnosis that faculty can ‘own’. / Establish the need for a change – the diagnosis - before proposing a prescription. Make sure that staff see UbD as an appropriate response to a need they recognize and own.
5. Provide one introductory presentation on UbD and assume that teachers now have the ability to implement Ubd well. / Design PD backward from your goals. Build a year composed of workshops, study groups, action research groups, in which staff go through many cycles of learn/try/ feedback/revise
6. Provide UbD training for teachers, but not for administrators; give leaders and supervisors the same training as teachers. / Establish parallel tracks of training for administrators in which they work on how to supervise Ubd – in-class “look-fors,” establishing review of units, analysis of state standards, etc.
7. Provide minimal UbD training for some teachers in a Train-the-trainers program, then expect immediate and effective turn-key training of all other staff by those few pioneers (even though they may not even be good teachers of adults) /
  • Establish a process for carefully soliciting, interviewing, testing, and hiring would-be trainers.
  • Develop a year-long training program
  • Support trainers with on-line and in-person troubleshooting

8. Train people in Stage 1 in Year 1, Stage 2 in Year 2, Stage 3 in Year 3 – insuring that no useful results will occur for years, and the big picture is not seen. / Train so that designers have tried out a few unit strands through all 3 Stages (e.g. Essential Question, Task related to question, Activities related to question) at least twice; then a full-blown unit, by year’s end.
9. Announce that UbD is the official way to plan all lessons from here on – even though UbD is not a lesson-plan system. /
  • Make clear that UbD is one approach to unit planning.
  • Allow some freedom in how people write lessons
  • Make Stages 1 & 2 mandatory, but make Stage 3 open to personal creativity – as long as alignment is safeguarded.

10. Standardize all implementation and experimentation. Don’t permit options/alternatives/different approaches to learning, trying, and using Ubd. Don’t play to the interests, talents, and readiness of staff. / Differentiate the ubd work: allow staff members a choice of role (trainer/designer /piloter/assessor); modify the template to suit local emphases, vary degrees and timing of involvement, etc.

Note: we offer support material and long-term training on all the proposed reform ideas mentioned in this handout. Contact Denise Wilbur at Authentic Education for further information:

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