Chapter 9: planning for learning

     A good plan for learning must have important qualities, such as engaging and effective. In order to accomplish that the goals should be based on interesting and relevant work that can develop students cognition, understanding and achievement of content.
    I noticed that in this chapter the author mentions that "students need to experience the big ideas as real, and they need to be equipped for their final performances." (pg 208)
    But...How can students experience those big ideas as real? The author responds to that by developing the idea of exploring through experience, which is similar to student-center type of learning. What about the use of authentic materials and tasks in a teacher-center teaching environment? It is possible to achieve as well engagement on big ideas and essential questions through a techer-centered learning using mainly authentic materials and activities for the students, so that students feel immersed in a more real learning environment and not an artificial one.

Chapter 6: Crafting understandings

In this chapter, a straightfoward question was written on page 143, "But what if the desired understanding is that there is no official, single, greed-upon understanding?" When I started reading the chapter, a similar question came up to my mind. I agree, but not absolutely, with the fact that teachers must frame understandings and that unit and courses need to explicitly include desired understandings, underlying concepts, etc. What is missing here, in my opinion, is to include other important factors that are always present in a classroom: that is, the different types of intelligences and motivation towards the topic or presentation of the unit. I say this because I think that there is not always an unique nor final understanding. The understanding will vary according to the type of intellingence the student has. For example, if two students (one with more natural type of intelligence, the other with a logical-type of intelligence) are learing about chemical components of a substance, these two students will make inferences about the problem in different ways, and may have different conclusions. Different conclusions that could open doors e.g. to new dilemmas and discoveries
I think that what is explained in the chapter should not be taken too strictly... it is important to reflect that as long as students are making inquiries, thinking analytically, and trying to get conclusions, they are developing their high-cognitive skills. Nothing is absolutely black or white, we as teachers, always have to think in the possibility of a grey color.

Chapter 5: Essential questions: doorways to understanding

Essential questions help teachers stay focus on big ideas. These questions need to transfer deep understanding to the students and must be answerable as well as to be a sort of "doorway" that leads students to the exploration of core concepts of a certain content.

I understand by this, that in some way students are encouraged to debate, analyze and criticize their understanding of an issue in order to stimulate their deep thinking and relate content, thus, improve  their high-cognitive skills. Of course, questions should be shaped around the objective(s) of the unit or they wouldn’t be focused.

I think that these type of inquiries and discussions should be made also by the part of the students, especially teenagers. Why not give them the tools to make "essential questions" on a certain topic by themselves? It's important that students be autonomous critical thinkers because it is something that they will need throughout their lives, not only at school, but also outside of it. 

Students need to have the tools to deal with problematic daily issues e.g. drugs, alcohol, morality, etc. only if they have been given appropriate ground and guidance and make them feel their questions are always acceptable.

Chapter 3- Gaining Clarity on our Goals

    To begin with, it is always important to consider (as it was mentioned in this chapter) not only the teachers' requirements when creating and teaching a course, but also the students' needs to understand" how to learn" and "how to perform" besides other issues. It's on the teachers' role to help students improve their abilities to accomplish their understandings about the goals of their learning.
    Worth mentioning are the content standards or learning outcomes we find in educational planning. The overload content becomes a problem, because most of the time teachers are asked to teach too much content, e.g. all the units of a book, not having enough time to focus adequately on their students' needs and interests. In the long run, they are obliged to limit their work beyong their wills.
    Probably, the idea to focus on Big ideas and design around them could help much better frame teaching and assessment as well as help students encourage reflective work.

Understanding by Design- Chapter 1

In my opinion, the framework explained in chapter 1 of this book provides a very practical tool for curriculum design, one I would certainly use and encourage to be widely used by teachers, book designers and planners.

This chapter describes in depth the 3 major stages of this UbD framework, each one is based on essential elements and questions. Chaper 1 is named “Desired results” in which goals and students understanding should be established. Chaper 2 “Asessment Evidence” has to do with performance tasks that will demonstrate the desired results. In chapter 3 “Learning Plan” learning activities are developed and the “whereto.”

In conclusion, the stages of this framework are coherent and they provide us a way to think purposefully when designing curriculum. By this means, we may contribute a lot to reform our educational workplace.