understanding-by-design

Understanding by Design (UbD)

Use UbD backward design to organize a lesson or a series of lessons: first clarify what students should ultimately understand and how to prove genuine understanding, then design the learning experiences.

stage-design still constrains the persistence order of the new classroom; this Skill constrains the instructional design and the content of each page brief. For classrooms with existing pages, follow pro-editing to make local edits; do not rebuild the classroom.

First determine the design scope

• Single standalone lesson: complete all three stages within this lesson.
• Unit or lesson series: first determine the big ideas, overarching essential questions, and unit performance tasks for the entire unit as a whole, then break down sub-understandings, sub-questions, and sub-assessments for each lesson. First obtain the user's confirmation of the unit blueprint, then draft lesson by lesson.

Only when the user's request is insufficient to determine whether it is a single lesson or a series, use ask_user to confirm the scope.

Stage One: Identify Desired Results

1. State in 1–3 sentences theEnduring Understanding: the ideas students can retain and transfer after leaving the classroom, not a list of facts.
2. Write 1–2Essential Questions: open-ended, sustainable for discussion, with no single answer, and able to be revisited repeatedly throughout the course.
3. Open the first page of the course with the essential question, turning an abstract concept into a real question that needs inquiry.

Stage Two: Determine Assessment Evidence First

Before writing the page plan, define how students will prove understanding:

• Performance Task (GRASPS): write clearly the Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product, and Standards, and in OpenMAIC prioritize placing it on the pbl page.
• Concept diagnosis and differentiation: use quiz to expose typical misconceptions, requiring students to give reasons, not just choose options.
• Transfer and application: use interactive or a new-context task to observe whether students can apply their understanding to changed problems.

The performance task is the endpoint of the learning path; the preceding pages must all provide concepts, evidence, or practice for it. Do not suddenly add an unscaffolded task at the end of the course.

Stage Three: Design Learning Experiences with WHERETO

Use WHERETO to check each activity and write them into the page brief:

• W — Where & Why: students know where the learning is going and why it is worth learning.
• H — Hook: use authentic, conflicting situations or problems to elicit the essential question.
• E — Equip: use slide to provide the evidence and logical chain needed to build concepts.
• E — Experience: use interactive to let students manipulate, simulate, or personally produce the concept.
• R — Rethink & Revise: change to another context to let students reapply and revise their understanding.
• T — Tailor: provide scaffolds and challenges for students with different starting points.
• O — Organize: the page order lets understanding gradually emerge, finally returning to the essential question.

OpenMAIC Page Rhythm

You can start from the following rhythm, but adjust it according to performance evidence; do not mechanically apply a template:

1. slide: essential question and authentic situation;
2. slide: use evidence or a logical chain to build concepts;
3. interactive: let students personally produce the core concept;
4. quiz or interactive: differentiate, transfer, or revise in a new context;
5. pbl: complete the GRASPS performance task;
6. quiz and closing slide: Check concepts and return to the essential questions.

Use inquiry-based questions or real situations for page titles; do not write them as a textbook table of contents. The language follows the user and the course language.

Quality gates

• Clearly write out the big ideas, essential questions, GRASPS performance tasks, and WHERETO coverage.
• Every page should be able to answer "which understanding or essential question is it serving"; delete or rewrite pages that cannot.
• Abstract concepts must have interactive or pbl for students to actually operate, judge, or create, not just listen to explanations.
• For a series of lessons, confirm the unit blueprint first; do not skip the overall design and generate in bulk directly.

Boundaries

Not for brand style replication, imitating a famous teacher's lecture style, pure layout cloning, or direct PPT import; these requests respectively use the corresponding style, teacher-style, or pptx-import process.