Understanding by Design

As a second-year teacher, designing lessons, activities, and assessments has been a challenge. In my district, CTE teachers are subject matter experts who are not always teachers by trade. That being said, understanding the content wasn't a concern for me, but designing lessons and teaching the content to 8th graders was. After reading Wiggins and McTighe's "Understanding by Design" and thrusting through my 3 Column Table assignment, I completed the UbD Template for my "Building a Personal Brand" unit. 

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My "Building a Personal Brand" unit concentrates on web design and branding fundamentals. The unit begins with a Canva-provided tutorial on a personal brand and its included assets. Next, the students will view the "What is an ePortfolio" video and collectively discuss their initial takeaways, ideas, fears, and inquiries. From there, the lesson continues to the concepts of design like typography, color harmony, and layout + composition. I am excited to begin this journey with my students and see my innovation plan leap from an idea on paper to a real-life student project. 

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Although designing lessons and curriculum posed a significant challenge, the UbD template was easy to work with and allowed me to see the lesson and curriculum design from an aerial view. "Start with the end in mind" is perfectly captured in the UbD template. The compartmentalization of each stage allowed me to chuck my ideas and piece them together at my own pace. Before this activity, the idea of lesson/curriculum planning was so daunting. It seemed like a huge undertaking, but being able to piece my thoughts together using the three-stage template was helpful.