UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN

All San Marino FLAP lessons are built from the unit design format  "Understanding by Design" by Grant Wiggins and Grant McTighe.  This intuitive lesson design format emphasizes the interdisciplinary "backwards design" when planning instruction.  All units of understanding revolve around a central "big idea" that students "uncover" to achieve  "enduring understanding".  The backwards design process is considered intuitive in the sense that all lessons should always bear in mind the final results desired.  When the focus shifts away from the results and into learning activities, as is often the case, sometimes the learning plan falls astray of the actual goals.

For more on Understanding by Design, please click here.

For the list of elementary school lessons  San Marino Unified has designed using Understanding by Design, please click here.