Navigation
Subscribe by RSS
Hot Topics
More About This Website

This website contains ideas that are "in process." Simply put, what you read here may be just some random thoughts, rather than validated and final procedures. Mind you, aren't most ideas "in process?" The bulk of what you'll read here are answers to questions I am emailed or asked during presentations, or summaries of excellent ideas others share with me.

Of course, you can add to this blog by leaving your own comments, too.

You can learn more about Instructional Coaching at www.instructionalcoach
.org

or at my delicious site

You can contact me at jimknight@mac.com

Or follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/
jimknight99

Archive
Login
Powered by Squarespace
« The Oral History Project at Lab School in NYC | Main | Can Instructional Coaches Be Bosses? »
Sunday
May152005

Understanding by DESIGN

DateSunday, May 15, 2005 at 09:27PM

By one of those strange learning coincidences, I’ve encountered ideas that seem to be fitting together in an interesting if not entirely coherent way. I'm in New York City to work with teachers, but it happens to be Design Week 2005. School and design seem to keep getting mixed up in my mind today.

First, although I’ve looked through Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design, (1998) on a number of occasions, I’ve only just started to read it with the care it deserves. I’m struck by how the authors compare instructional planning and curriculum development to design:

“Teacher are designers. An essential act of our profession is the design of curriculum and learning experiences to meet specified purposes. We are also designers of assessments to diagnose student needs to guide our teaching and to enable us, our students, and others (parents and administrators) to determine whether our goals have been achieved; that is, did the students learn and understand the desired knowledge?

Like other design professions, such as architecture, engineering, or graphic arts, designers in education must be mindful of their audiences. Professionals in these fields are strongly client centered. The effectiveness of the designs corresponds to where they have accomplished their goals for the end users” (p.7).

At the same time, I’ve been reading this month’s Fast Company, which features several articles on design. I’ve found the articles, so far, to be energizing and they make me feel, at least for the moment, that there is so much more to “designing” instruction that authentically engages our students.

Fast Company suggests several interesting websites on design, and I find them inspiring and confusing, so I thought I would put the sites on here in case someone else might make use of them:

www.designobserver.com

http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/SIMPLICITY

www.core77.com

AuthorJim Knight | Comment2 Comments |
in , ,

Reader Comments (2)

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
All HTML will be escaped. Hyperlinks will be created for URLs automatically.

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.