Free Essay About Understanding By Design: Reflective Paper

Understanding by Design (UbD) is a refreshingly effective and simple approach that helps both instructors and learners to set and achieve learning goals. The design for the learning content flows from an instructor’s assessment of the students’ understanding. Effectively, by this approach, both the content and instruction moves away from a prescriptive recipe to a flexible system geared towards accommodating and fostering the learners’ understanding.
I personally find the three-step reverse planning process is indispensable in the success of a teacher-centered approach to instruction. This is not least because a student-centered approach, usually, has no set priorities or purpose. The teacher simply follows the students’ capacity to understand and interest as against the set curriculum. Without a reverse planning process, it would be impossible for both instructors and students to achieve meaningful learning goals. If both teachers and students know what needs to be achieved in a lesson or even entire course, a teacher/student can then set out the issues that need to be covered. These then serve to guide the lesson, including questions and learning aids among other aspects.
Further, I believe that the fact that teachers become participants in a collaborative learning process, forces them to actively encourage learning, and by doing so, they are better placed to understand the students’ learning needs. In exploring the learning goals with learners, they also know what they should expect during the lesson, which makes them more receptive of the content. ON the other hand, the teacher is also able to anticipate the learners needs and prepare for them.