Understanding by Design (UbD) is Fashionable!

 As educators, we have expectations of our students, and of ourselves. It's imperative that we remember to qualify those expectations with achievable outcomes. From the conception of an idea, we must know what we want to see in the final stages of a unit of study in order to assess the learning that took place.



 Educators must tailor the design of learning to fit both their expectations as well as those of their students. Students should get fitted for the suit before they attempt to put it on. You don't want to have a student with pants that are too long that keeps tripping all over the place or a student that is squeezing into a jacket which is bursting at the seams. It needs to fit just right before they even put it on, and they should look good wearing it. You need to have confidence in that, and so do they. You're the tailor of their education, so design a suit that is most fitting and fashionable. Jumping into a unit of study without a clear understanding of how you will measure the results or what they will look like is a major fashion feaux pas. Make sure that you know in the beginning of a unit that the suit you are designing for them is going to land them in the best dressed column, and not have people asking, "What were they wearing?!" 

 You should know how to measure the learning and what the learning products look like upon achievement of goals before you even step foot into a lesson, and so should they. In other words, the light at the end of the tunnel should be visible to students before they even enter into it, and you are there to guide them through the darkness and confusion that may lie ahead. The light at the end of the tunnel starts at the beginning.