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The Understanding by Design Handbook
Chapter 4. Module 4: Identifying Enduring Understandings
How does one go about determining what is worth understanding amid a range of content standards and topics?
—Wiggins & McTighe, 1998, p. 10
Using the Module
Because there is typically more content than can reasonably be addressed within the available instructional time, educators are obliged to make choices. A useful framework for establishing curricular priorities may be graphically depicted using three nested rings, shown in Figure 4.1.
Figure 4.1. Framework for Establishing Curricular Priorities
The blank background within the middle ring represents the field of possible content (topics, skills, and resources) that might be examined during a unit or course. Clearly, as educators, we cannot address it all; thus, we move within the largest ring to identify knowledge that students should be familiar with. During the unit or course, what do we want students to hear, read, view, research, or otherwise encounter? For example, in an introductory course on classroom assessment, it makes sense for adult students to be conversant with the history of standardized testing in the United States and in other nations (see Figure 4.2). Broad-brush knowledge, assessed through traditional quiz or test questions, would be sufficient, given the purpose of the course.
In the middle ring, we sharpen our choices by specifying important knowledge (facts, concepts, and principles) and skills (processes, strategies, and methods). We would say that student learning is incomplete if the unit or course concluded without mastery of these essentials. For instance, the characteristics of, and distinctions between, norm- and criterion-referenced assessments would be considered essential knowledge in the assessment course, and some use of that knowledge would properly be expected. Here is another way to think about the middle ring: It specifies the prerequisite knowledge and skill students need to successfully accomplish key performances.
The smallest ring requires finer-grain choices and a focus on intellectual priorities. Here we select the enduring understandings that will anchor the unit and establish a rationale for it. The term enduring refers to the big ideas, or the important understandings, that we want students to "get inside of" and retain after they've forgotten many of the details. Put differently, the enduring understandings provide a larger purpose for learning the targeted content: They implicitly answer the question, Why is this topic worth studying? For the assessment course, the instructor would emphasize the principles of validity and reliability—through analysis and critiquing of would-be tests, followed by actual test design work—and the distinctions in theory and practice between norm- and criterion-referenced evaluation.
How do educators determine what is worth understanding from among a range of content standards, topics, and goals and objectives? We offer four criteria, or filters, to use in selecting big ideas and core processes to teach for understanding:
To what extent are the content standards and topics enduring and transferable big ideas, having value beyond the classroom?
Enduring understandings go beyond discrete facts or skills to focus on larger concepts, principles, or processes. They are transferable—applicable to new situations within or beyond the subject. For example, we study the enactment of the Magna Carta as a specific historical event because of its significance to a larger idea. That idea is the "rule of law," whereby written laws specify the limits of a government's power and articulate the rights of individuals, such as due process. This big idea transcends its roots in 13th century England to become a cornerstone of modern democratic societies. Students can use this understanding in new situations, such as when studying emerging democracies in the third world.
A big idea may be described as an intellectual linchpin. A linchpin is the pin that keeps a wheel in place on an axle. Thus, a linchpin idea is one that is essential for understanding—without it, a student cannot go anywhere. For instance, without grasping the distinction between the letter and the spirit of the law, a student cannot understand the U.S. constitutional and legal system—even if the student is highly knowledgeable and articulate about the facts of U.S. history and law. Without a focus on transferable, linchpin ideas that have lasting value, the student may be left with inert, easily forgotten fragments of knowledge.
To what extent are the content standards and topics big ideas and core processes at the heart of the discipline?
Consider the ways people work within the disciplines—conducting investigations in science; writing for different purposes (e.g., to inform, persuade, or entertain) to real audiences; interpreting events and primary source documents in history; applying mathematics to solve real-world problems; researching; critiquing books and movies; and debating issues of social and economic policy. Such authentic learning experiences shift students from a passive knowledge receiver into an active constructor and verifier of meaning. By involving students in "doing" the subject, we provide them with insights into how knowledge is generated, tested, and used.
To what extent are the content standards and topics abstract, counterintuitive, often misunderstood, or easily misunderstood ideas requiring uncoverage?
Think about the abstract ideas in a unit or course, those concepts and principles that are not obvious and may be counterintuitive. For example, in physics, students often struggle with ideas concerning gravity, force, and motion. When asked to predict which object—a marble or a bowling ball—will strike the ground first when dropped simultaneously from the same height, many students reveal a common misconception by incorrectly selecting the bowling ball.
What important concepts or processes do students have difficulty grasping? What do they frequently misunderstand? What do they typically struggle with? About which big ideas are they likely to harbor a misconception? These are fruitful topics to select and uncover—to teach for understanding.
To what extent are the content standards and topics big ideas embedded in facts, skills, and activities?
Many seemingly straightforward facts are difficult to grasp without understanding the underlying concepts that give meaning to those facts. And many skills are only successfully mastered when we understand their intellectual purpose or justification. The fact that small objects fall to earth in the way they do only becomes understandable through the idea of gravitational force that similarly keeps planets in orbit. The skill of reading stories requires understanding that authors sometimes do not explicitly state what the story is about—their meaning resides between the lines.
None of these ideas for setting priorities and designing for better understanding is radical or new. Indeed, Bruner in The Process of Education (1960) made an elegant case almost 40 years ago for greater curricular focus on what matters most—powerful ideas with transfer:
The curriculum of a subject should be determined by the most fundamental understanding that can be achieved of the underlying principles that give structure to a subject. . . . Teaching specific topics or skills without making clear their context in the broader fundamental structure of a field of knowledge is uneconomical. . . . An understanding of fundamental principles and ideas appears to be the main road to adequate transfer of training. To understand something as a specific instance of a more general case—which is what understanding a more fundamental structure means—is to have learned not only a specific thing but also a model for understanding other things like it that one may encounter (pp. 6, 25, and 31).
What is perhaps new is that we offer a set of tools (worksheets and filters) to make the selection of curriculum priorities more likely to happen by design than by good fortune. Several design tools have proven useful to educators striving to identify priorities and focus on big ideas within a unit of study or course. Figures 4.3 and 4.4 provide examples from a unit on nutrition and on the American Revolution. Figures 4.5–4.8 illustrate possible enduring understandings that resulted from running various content topics through the Understanding by Design filters. Try using the blank versions of these design tools (Worksheets 4.1 and 4.2) with content standards and topics from your curriculum.
A filter is not a criterion that all units must meet; it is a guideline for focusing a unit on important ideas worthy of understanding. Passing possible topics through the filters helps ensure the quality of the unit's ingredients, but it is not sufficient to judge the final design. That assessment requires a set of tests, based on design standards, once the unit is complete. Consider the metaphor of drip coffee making, from which our filter analogy is borrowed. The paper filters out the grounds so that only coffee (not mere water or ground coffee) goes into the carafe. But the filter is not providing a criterion of good coffee; the final test of the coffee is whether it tastes good. Analogously, because we have identified a big idea, it does not follow that our final unit will do justice to that idea. Nor are these filters the only ways to end up with a good idea. Similarly, we might even make good coffee using different or makeshift filters (e.g., we have no more paper ones in the house, but we find some cheesecloth to use). In terms of testing, all that matters is that the final unit (or cup of java) be right, not meet rules of being made a certain way. |
The basic concepts of nutrition are fairly straightforward, as are the skills of menu planning. So then, what are the important ideas worth understanding? What in the unit may require uncovering? One aspect of nutrition that isn't obvious to my students is the understanding that the USDA food pyramid provides a general set of guidelines for good nutrition, but that individual differences (in age, weight, activity level, and dietary restrictions) must be taken into account. In other words, a healthy diet for one individual may be inadequate for another. As I reflect on my experience teaching nutrition, I've been frustrated by the fact that even when students know what "healthy eating" means, they don't always follow what they've learned; that is, they still eat too much junk food and too few fruits and vegetables. Maybe this is another aspect of nutrition that needs uncovering—exploring the idea of why people don't act on their knowledge with respect to eating (and other health matters, such as exercise). I think I'll try to uncover these two ideas in addition to teaching basic nutrition information. |
Figure 4.2. Establishing Curricular Priorities, Assessment Course (Stage 1 Backward Design Process). Corresponds to WS 4.1.
Figure 4.3. Establishing Curricular Priorities, Nutrition Unit (Stage 1 Backward Design Process). Corresponds to WS 4.1.
Figure 4.4. Establishing Curricular Priorities, American Revolution Unit (Stage 1 Backward Design Process). Corresponds to WS 4.1.
Figure 4.5. Targeting Possible Understandings Using the Filters, Government Unit (Stage 1 Backward Design Process). Corresponds to WS 4.2.
Figure 4.6. Targeting Possible Understandings Using the Filters, Apples Unit (Stage 1 Backward Design Process). Corresponds to WS 4.2.
Figure 4.7. Targeting Possible Understandings Using the Filters, Satire Unit (Stage 1 Backward Design Process). Corresponds to WS 4.2.
Figure 4.8. Targeting Possible Understandings Using the Filters, Scientific Method Unit (Stage 1 Backward Design Process). Corresponds to WS 4.8.
Worksheet 4.1. Establishing Curricular Priorities (Stage 1 Backward Design Process). Corresponds to Figs. 4.2–4.4.
Worksheet 4.2. Targeting Possible Understandings Using the Filters (Stage 1 Backward Design Process). Corresponds to Figs. 4.5–4.8.
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