In general, I would categorically say that as per experience, the effects of the UBD curriculum among high school students in view of language learning are phenomenal, enormous and greatly practical. It’s phenomenal because of the obvious fact that this type of learning style is a beneficial paradigm shift from the traditional way of academic learning in general and language learning in particular. Secondly, the effect can be said enormous because of the fact that you can never really tell the impact’s extent of the ubd in terms of language learning to each and every learner until you make a thorough evaluation of the outcome after the ubd learning plan has been carried out. Lastly, another effect of the ubd towards the learners’ language learning is basically greatly practical, simply because of the fact that they themselves are at the heart of this style of learning and are therefore given all the possible needed and necessary chances to speak verbally and mentally every now and then inside the class either individually, by pair or dyad, by three, square sharing, small group sharing, big group sharing, reporting in class, oral production and a lot more of instances to speak and think. But to understand really the essence on this claim regarding the effects of UBD to the high school students’ language learning, allow me to go deeper with my sharing of my day to day classroom experiences with ubd towards my high school students for almost a decade now not only with language learning but even with the other vital facets of academic endeavor. Let’s begin by the preliminaries of how ubd was introduced to us…
The first time this new curriculum called ubd or understanding by design was introduced to us teachers few summers ago, all of us teachers raised our eyebrows and looked at each other with that quite stern doubting look with basically the same question in mind: “so what will this be again?” So what! This was what each of our hearts and almost rebellious thoughts are shouting with the rapid changes of our school from one curriculum design to another.
As products of traditional learning, we have the tendency to do what our teachers in the traditional schools did impart to us and the very same manner of how they did it already seems part and parcel of our system. We are indeed the shadows of our past and past educational experiences to be specific. Thus, it seems challenging for most of us teachers most especially the older ones to adapt this new changes, with the ubd curriculum in particular. We can however just complain and eventually comply since the school wants it and the least that we can do is complain but eventually follow, otherwise we will be left behind by everyone in school and in the world of teaching.
I vividly recall the many types of curriculum design asked of us by the school’s administrators to implement. From BEC to LCLE then to UBD. You can’t simply imagine the numerous series of seminars which were bombarded to our already busy schedules.
Prior to the ubd curriculum, our school was adept and exposed to the so-called learner-centered learning environment. This was basically very much related to understanding by backward design since the focus in the teaching endeavor is not anymore the subject matter or worse the teacher which is happening in most traditional school but the students themselves and the manners, ways or the design provided by the teacher himself or herself for the students. In the learner centered-learning environment, the students are the be all and end all of the learning process. They are the primary focus, the ones in the limelight, thus the design of the LCLE is geared towards the development of these students in all the aspects of learning. Hence, in LCLE, the teacher serves only as the facilitator of knowledge. Therefore, the teacher must implement and be aware about the different forms of how the students learn those who may be inclined with mental exercise, those who love analogy and thinking, those who learn most by kinesthetic, and those who learn easily by expressing themselves in the field of acting or the arts and so on so forth. While on the other hand, in ubd his role of the teacher is to see to it that there is a transfer of knowledge from the learning resources and materials to the students themselves, in short, the students should understand the basic why, what, when where in view of the learning module or plan.
As traditional teachers, we were trained to basically give to our high school students everything that the textbook has for that particular year level. For instance, in a language class, as a language teacher I need to see to it that as much as possible I will cover and present to my students all of the content no matter what the cost maybe. For as long as I would be able to cover most of the topics provided in the textbook’s table of content and provide my students with all the materials that I need to give them together with the said content of my subject matter, then everything is fine and I am guilty free whether my students learned or not. Learners and whether they learn or not is not the primary objective or aim of the typical traditional teaching but only to cover most if not all of the subject matter’s content and materials. I believe this is therefore a major sin in teaching or mentoring. Imparting knowledge must consider the learners themselves and whether they actually learn or not.
On the other hand, ubd in general focuses more in making the students become more and more responsible and mature members of society. As responsible citizens, they must therefore be prepared in view of how to deal with the realities and problems of life and therefore to think deeply and intelligently through opportunities which will make them develop to have a critical and logical thinking.
Ubd undoubtedly prepares the students to reason out both literally and mentally most especially when they are faced with sophisticated and complex situation. The mere fact that the world is not merely presenting a black or white type of choices, the more that the school’s curriculum should do its part in making the students better equipped with all the necessary tools that they need to become smart in dealing with life. In this regard, the importance of ubd in the language learning endeavor of the students is very critical since this curriculum aims basically that they, as students will become individuals who not only speaks with empty words just to flaunt their respective adeptness of the English language but more so to speak whatever language that they wish to express in a manner that they are well understood, very logical, well thought of and most importantly with much sense and sensibility. The ubd makes this happen at the end of a particular module simply because it does not only stop after a particular content and its respective materials has been presented to the students (which happens usually in the traditional school), it moves deeper, namely to the “SO WHAT THEN?” level or phase. After learning everything and doing all the tasks, “so what” phase comes into the scene to check and balance if the students did experience a real transfer of knowledge from all the things that transpired in the classroom setting while doing the module. This part makes it very innovative and obviously what makes ubd praiseworthy in its endeavor. This is an extra mile walk and the most essential part of the curriculum. The big ideas, the essential questions or the EQs (essential questions) are new realities which make ubd a truly worthwhile design of learning.
Wiggins G. & McTighe, J.,. Understanding by design (2nd ed) famous authors said that ubd is the answer to the many dimensions of educational failure. I agree with them in so many ways primarily in view of the language learning of our high school students of De La Salle Santiago Zobel School, (the high school department of De La Salle University, Taft, Manila) situated at Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa City. As a brief backgrounder, De La Salle Zobel, is one of the most prestigious high schools in the country, an exclusive school for the rich and famous. Our students are basically a mixture of foreigners (children of ex-patriots or ambassadors) and those children of politicians, businessmen and people who were simply filthy rich. These are the type of kids who speak English at home, go abroad for their vacation, spends lavishly for all their whims, have yayas or nannies, have drivers or drives a car of their own. Most of them have English as their first language or mother tongue even if they are pure Filipinos. Most of them too have either a British or English accent when talking. Most of them however speak empty words or simply out of showing off their gift of gab or their skills in speaking the English Language. This is the very concrete scenario where I implemented the UBD. In view of language learning, the UBD curriculum.
Wiggins G. & McTighe, J were hopeful indeed that this revolutionary and phenomenal curriculum approach will burn like wildfire all of the dimensions of educational system of the entire world sooner or later. They said that in ubd their fundamental suggestion in the learning endeavor is almost the opposite of the constructivist approach of learning. The method to be used in engineering the module or the bigger plan of a teacher’s lesson should be the so-called backward instructional approach which begins basically with the identification of the general goals and the so-called “big ideas” that each and every students need to learn and discover for themselves with the teacher as the facilitator. Upon identifying the said big ideas (it is what you generally wish your students to actually learn after the module or big lesson plan) the teacher eventually creates all the possible assessments which may present and facilitate the students’ learning. In view of language learning, the possible usual assessments that I usually incorporate in the module include those which will develop not only their verbal speaking but more so their critical and logical way of thinking. The big idea of the ubd must therefore be engineered in such a way that our students talks with much sense and sensibility not just parroting or saying empty words no matter how articulate they may be. Among the basic assessments include individual oral graded recitation, oral production, debate, extemporaneous speaking, brainstorming, and the like. These assessments will develop the verbal language learning of the students. On the other hand, reflection papers, essay writing, situational analysis, case study and the like are those types of assessments which may eventually enable the students to think deeply and logically. After the assessments come now the activities. The most essential question that a teacher must answer in view of conceptualizing the series of related activities that will be employed in view of carrying out the module or learning plan is the fact that each and every student has his own particular inclination in view of learning effectively. Thus as a ubd planner the teacher therefore must utilize the different aspects of learning which will focus on the different learning styles of each and every individual students.
As the authors aptly capsulize it, “put understanding first…” Wiggins G. & McTighe, J knew from the very first moment that they came up and conceptualized this theory of the ubd that, the be all and end all of understanding by design is practically the understanding from the students themselves through transfer of knowledge and many other factors…
What makes ubd totally different and in fact one step forward in the learning endeavor is the fact that it has essential questions or EQs, this this also regarded as the “so what” phase of the learning process.
The EQs or the essential questions are basically the heart of ubd…
Moreover, there are several noteworthy factors or points from the well acclaimed book Understanding by Design specifically, in the Introduction and Chapter 1 as well as in Chapter 7, Thinking Like an Assessor, among others is: The reality of the lack of essential questions and the so called “so what?” stage of the traditional learning approach. Those traditional curriculums for the high school students focus more on the activities and the coverage of the learning module. This is where the traditional approach misses the link between real learning to superficial one. Instead of bombarding the students with so much information to memorize and so many activities to accomplish, the ubd curriculum aims at giving meaning to all these various things which the teacher gives or presents to the students. The so what phase will enable the students to ask themselves the importance of doing the things in view of the learning module. If in the outset, the students do understand already the reason why they will do this and do that, then learning will be easily facilitated.
*But what then is the detailed process in doing the ubd learning approach in order to facilitate learning, specifically language learning. Well, this is another topic to elaborate…
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