Chapter 12. The Big Picture: UbD as Curriculum Framework

First, the authors talk about good questions and their importance to develop interesting and fruitful connections and meanings. They also state that content and instructional methods even when they are of the best quality could fail in achieving effecting learning.
I have to say that I totally agree with what they say, since in many cases teachers are more worried about teaching the most amount of contents they can and leave aside the learner’s process itself, assessments and understanding.
According to what we read, “The aim of learner’s understanding is at risk in course and curriculum sequences that involve one tour of each topic, in a flow dictated by the separate content element as opposed to learner performance goals related to understanding” (Wiggins & Mc Tighe, p.291) The goal in all areas of study should be understand the subject and acquire skills and knowledge by doing and relating what they are learning to different subjects, their experiences, context, among others.
The content our students learn should be used by dealing with diverse and complicated ideas and also with different aspects of performance.
Authors propose that the curriculum sequence found in the more “modern” performance areas is truer to what we know about how and why people learn and should be applied to all traditional academic areas if what we want is to improve learners’ understanding.
Finally, it is quite important that we as teachers be able to sequence and organize our students’ performance and learning process, in this way, we will help them to learn in a more effective manner.