Chapter 9: Bringing It All Together: Curriculum and Instruction THrough the Lens of UbD and DI

This chapter describes UbD and DI and how to integrate them both in the classroom. It starts by explaining what differentiated teachers do that is different in order to help their students. There is a list of nine very well explained goals for UbD and DI, and really pounds on how important it is in the classroom. There is an example of a backwards design unit plan for 5th and 6th grade nutrition, and it integrates ways to differentiate. Tomlinson and McTighe present different ways of utilizing assessment and how to adjust for specific students and every student’s learning style(s). The book covers a section on ensuring maximum student growth by understanding what the makeup of the classroom is by both content knowledge and other skill sets. The chapter outlines the pre-assessment process as well as progressing through the lesson to the final assessment. There is a list of different tasks outlined for the specific unit that encompass differentiation techniques, and is also specific to certain types of student learners. There is a list of indicators that someone would see if they were to observe a differentiated classroom and ways to see how the teacher is using backwards design. Within this list, there are things to look for within categories. The categories are “the learning environment”, “the curriculum”, “the teacher”, and “the learner”. It illustrates ways that teachers can show and use backwards design and differential instruction in the classroom. The point is to be flexible, have plans and goals, and to have a comfortable classroom environment. You have to differentiate, and treat the students like they are customers, and anything you can do for them to help them master the topic, is what is going to make you a more effective teacher.

For the most part, people felt like this chapter was redundant. There was a lot of good information in this chapter, and every one seemed to take a little bit out of it, but there was a whole lot of information that had been said several times in the book, other books and also in class. We got a lot out of the importance of flexibility, tailoring and a comfortable learning environment. Classroom environment is something that we don’t always think about, but most certainly understand the importance of. We understand differential instruction. We get the importance of backwards design. We have gotten this information, a lot and were kind of bored with it, but we thought that it was a good conclusion. You have to have a conclusion right? Most people thought that it was nice to see a complete unit in the book that mirrors the one that we have been creating in class, however, wished that they would have incorporated other subjects so that everyone can see how one looks in their concentration. If they had lessons and units in the appendix for more concentrations, that would have been really helpful.