Understanding By Design

This is a valuable resource for any educator. I have been teaching for over 30 years and I reference my copy all of the time. My son is early in his teaching career and is taking some graduate education courses. I bought it for him. He has already begun to use it as a part of his graduate studies and as a resource in his classroom.

Definitely a must have for any educator. Wiggins and McTighe are almost the pioneers in this field and thought of backwards design (Robert Tyler first thought of the concept in his published work from 1947) and their concepts are easy to implement and are what I would call a no-brainer. As in it should be something that all teachers are already implementing in their lesson and unit planning already. However, we all know that it is not already in the forefront of every educators mind or else there would not be a need for this book. This book will definitely teach the educator or potential educator how to start to think about the goals of a lesson and then to plan the lessons on how to get each student to those specific goals (backwards design). It is an easy concept and once understood and fully grasped by the educator he/she can start to educate their students in a way in which the students will benefit by truly gaining meaningful knowledge from the course they are taking with the educator and be able to apply the knowledge and demonstrate understanding.

I read this in conjunction with a class. Both together were definitely helpful. But the book provides a lot of insight into how to be deliberate about doing things that matter. I’ve been teaching well for thirty years, but I’m about to get better. :)

This is not the newest edition, but it works for my intention. I am an adjunct professor looking toward administration and wanted to get some foundational learning in curriculum and overall program design.

This book was recommended to me by people I consider to be excellent teachers. It really opened my eyes to a different way of approaching my teaching. This is a comprehensive resource for those that want to focus on ensuring that learning goes on in the minds of students, instead of a simple transfer of substantive knowledge from teacher to student. It is aimed at all grades, from elementary to college. The book is written in a way that makes it engaging to read, and reassures that you don't have to do every suggestion right away. I am looking forward to re-reading it and perhaps getting the companion workbook.

Book was delivered on time and in perfect condition.

The book describes something common sense with the assumption that if designed correctly students will have better chance understanding--not just knowing and being able to recall but being able to transfer to apply etc. What is really understanding? Understanding itself is ambiguous and shall not and cannot be unified. The whole book is under the fallacy that understanding can be taught, the teachers' own understanding may not be adequate, correct or deep. It went into great details as how to accomplish the goal--desired learning results but it fails to realize that humans arrive and achieve understanding at different paces under different contexts or circumstances yet some never do. The intention is good but assumption is off. Using a surgical approach to learning won't bring the desired outcome--and thank god it does not.

I had to read this book for a graduate course, and it is, quite possibly, one of the most enlightening education texts I have ever read. I bought the kindle version for the course, but I'm planning on buying the print edition so that I can re-read it, with more notes. It's that good. I wish I had read it years ago, and I have found it's impacted my teaching from chapter one. I'm encouraging my principal to offer it as a book study.