What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

The Encyclopedia of Middle Grades Education provides a comprehensive overview of the field. This publication includes seven anchor essays (5000 words) that cover the following topics: the history of the middle school movement; academically excellent curriculum, instruction, and assessment; developmental responsiveness in relation to young adolescents; social equity in middle grades schools; leadership in middle level schools; teacher and administrator preparation and professional development; and future directions in relation to the movement, practices, and policy. Leading scholars in the field of middle grades education were invited to author these essays. In addition to the seven anchor essays, the encyclopedia contains alphabetically organized entries (short entries approximately 500 words; long entries approximately 2000 words) that address important concepts, ideas, terms, people, organizations, and seminal publications related to middle grades education. Contributors to the encyclopedia have provided sufficient information so that the reader can place the idea, concept, person, etc. into its proper context in the history of the middle school movement. Entries are meant to be introductory; after an overview of the essentials of the topic the reader is guided to more extensive sources for further investigation. Where appropriate, the reader is also directed to electronic sources such as websites where additional information can be retrieved.

Demystifies curriculum integration describing a variety of curriculum integration options ranging from concurrent teaching of related subjects to fusion of curriculum focus to residential study focusing on daily living, from two-week units to year-long courses.

Reviews the purposes of assessment, and provides a rationale for the development of alternative forms for measuring student achievement.

This edition expands on the original publication from the late-1970s, Curriculum Books: The First Eighty Years. It covers some 3,000 curriculum books appearing in the U.S. from roughly 1900 to 2000, used to educate school administrators, teachers, aspiring educators, educational scholars, and the wider public about curriculum. Each chapter focuses on a single decade, providing background on the sociocultural, intellectual, artistic, and scientific developments of the time; a discussion of major curriculum movements, trends, books, and authors; and yearly bibliographies of curriculum books published in that decade. The second edition includes two new chapters covering the 1980s and 1990s, new commentary woven into the original introduction, and a new concluding chapter. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Learn practical methods for developing a collaborative environment where teachers and administrators work together to enhance teachers' practices, increase student learning, and produce valuable school processes.