Designing Teaching and Learning Activities By John L. Brown

This is the fourth How-To in the series, Teaching for Understanding in the Visual and Performing Arts based on the principles of Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTigue.

Stage Three of Understanding by Design

In this series of articles we have been exploring how Understanding by Design (UbD), the instructional framework designed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, is powerfully aligned with effective arts education. So far, we have discussed the backward-design process advocated by UbD, which emphasizes the need for educators to first determine their desired results, including enduring understandings and essential questions (Stage One), and then moving on to design a balanced "photo album" approach to assessing and evaluating student achievement of those results (Stage Two). In this final article, we will investigate Stage Three of UbD backward design, the creation of teaching and learning activities that promote high levels of student understanding.

Once again, we assert that arts educators already model many of the design principles associated with Understanding by Design in general-and Stage Three specifically. Teachers of the visual and performing arts, for example, almost inevitably emphasize student understanding of what they are learning, rather than formulaic recitation of declarative knowledge (i.e., information) or mechanical modeling of procedural knowledge (i.e., skills and procedures).

As we have seen in previous articles, instructors in the visual and performing arts expertly reinforce what Wiggins and McTighe call the six "facets of understanding":

• Explanation: i.e., students' ability to support claims and assertions with evidence
• Interpretation: i.e., students' ability to construct personal meaning from learning activities and life experiences, using that meaning to create new forms of expression
• Application: i.e., students' ability to use what they have learned in new, unanticipated, or creative ways
• Perspective: i.e., students' ability to describe and analyze differing points of view and attitudes related to debatable or controversial ideas, issues, events, and creative products
• Empathy: i.e., students' ability to "walk in the shoes" of others, describing and expressing how they would feel and experience the world if they were in another's situation or circumstances
• Self-Knowledge: i.e., students' ability to self-evaluate, self-monitor, and revisit, revise, rethink, and refine their own thinking and learning processes

The W.H.E.R.E.T.O. Instructional Design Template

One of the most powerful aspects of UbD's Stage Three principles involves what Wiggins and McTighe refer to as "W.H.E.R.E.T.O." This acronym represents a seven-part set of instructional design questions. As you will see, these questions are powerfully aligned with the work of all educators in the visual and performing arts. Before your read about them, think about an exemplary arts classroom with which you are familiar. Use that classroom (whether it's your own or that of another master teacher) to reflect on how well the instructor in that setting addresses each of the following Stage Three design questions:

• W=Where are students in this class going? What am I expecting them to know, do, and understand by the conclusion of this lesson, unit, and/or course? How will I ensure that all learners understand the purposefulness of what they are doing and learning-and its connection to their personal growth as an artists as well as the world beyond the classroom? Which facets of understanding will I emphasize in this particular instructional process?
• H=How will I hook and hold my students' imagination, commitment, and interest? At key juncture points in my lesson, unit, and/or course, how will I capture students' desire to be involved in what they are learning? How will I ensure that students receive support and coaching so that they understand the value of what I am teaching them-and its relevance to them and their experience as artists?
• E=How will I equip all my students for success in the area of the visual and performing arts I am teaching them? How will I provide varied and differentiated experiences so that all learners develop the requisite skills, procedures, and knowledge they require to be successful in expressing themselves in the artistic medium in which they are working? How will I provide coaching and support to help students move from initial modeling and shaping of the skills and procedures I am teaching them toward increasing levels of independent use and creative self-expression?
• R=How will I encourage my students to be self-reflective and self-evaluative as they explore and express themselves in the artistic media in which we are working? How will I build into their learning experiences opportunities to revisit, revise, refine, and rethink what they are doing and how they are doing it? How will I build in options for peer coaching and peer critique? How will I support all my students in experiencing the visual and performing arts as works in progress, rather than end points?
• E=How will I build into my arts instruction opportunities for students to self-evaluate and self-express? For example, how will I present students with models and exemplars of work comparable to the products, processes, and performances through which they are expected to express themselves in this lesson, unit, and/or course? How will I work with my students to explore and apply the evaluation criteria we will use to assess and monitor their progress-and judge the impact of their visual and/or performing arts products and performances? How will I encourage self-evaluation and self-reflection as an essential part of my students' arts education?
• T=How will I tailor my instruction to accommodate each student's artistic and expressive strengths as well as their needs and learning gaps? How will I avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching the visual and performing arts and emphasize, instead, a more differentiated approach to individualizing students' learning experiences? Overall, how will I ensure that I incorporate within my class a feedback-adjustment process in which I assess students' knowledge, strengths, and needs at the beginning of an instructional episode or process and use that assessment data to custom-tailor learning experiences to address each student's individual needs and abilities?
• O=How will I organize students' learning experiences so that I maximize their understanding of what they are doing in a particular aspect of the visual and performing arts? To what extent will I help my students move along a true developmental continuum, from novice to apprentice to master? Overall, how will I ensure that my students begin with concrete experiences that move them toward initial conceptual understanding and, ultimately, toward independent use and true self-expression?

Some Final Thoughts About Understanding and Visual and Performing Arts Education

As we conclude this series, it may be useful to summarize some of the key ideas and assertions we have emphasized throughout these four articles. To help you reflect upon the implications of Understanding by Design for education in the visual and performing arts, we close with this checklist-a reminder, we hope, of what frequently happens in all successful arts classrooms:

• Students are continually engaged in acts of self-evaluation, self-reflection, and self-expression.
• All learners understand the purpose(s) of what they are doing and learning and its connection to their personal identity as well as their world.
• Instruction consistently moves students beyond formulaic recall or empty modeling of behaviors, emphasizing, instead, their capacity to demonstrate proficiency in one or more of the "six facets of understanding": (1) explaining what they are doing, (2) interpreting their world through the arts, (3) applying what they are learning in new, creative, and individualized ways; (4) analyzing perspectives, exploring how different artists can assume varying and, at times, contradictory points of view and attitudes about events and situations; (5) expressing empathy, using their visual or performing arts experiences to explore what it feels like to walk in others' shoes; and (6) expanding their self-knowledge, using their experiences in the arts to enhance their capacity for self-evaluation, self-monitoring, and self-expression.
• Effective arts educators take a "backward-design" approach to designing teaching and learning experiences for their students, beginning in Stage One with desired results (i.e., "unpacked" standards, enduring understandings, essential questions, and enabling knowledge objectives); moving to Stage Two assessment (i.e., a balanced, "photo album" monitoring of student progress culminating in student-generated performance-based tasks and projects); and concluding with Stage Three design of learning activities, reflecting the W.H.E.R.E.T.O. design template.

Once again, we assert that education in the visual and performing arts reflects the principles of Understanding by Design because of the very nature of both what arts educators teach-and how they teach. Perhaps most significantly, we acknowledge the critical role which education in the visual and performing arts should play in all students' lives: Effective education in the arts is a central pathway to ensuring that students understand themselves, their capacity for self-expression and creativity, and their ability to interpret their world in new, unique, and powerful ways.