Understanding by Design Chapter 7: Teaching for Understanding in Academically Diverse Classrooms

Chapter seven focuses on the three main parts of planning lessons: using essential questions to engage learning, using the six facets, and the WHERETO model. These three tools can be used to engage students in your class and provide help in lesson plans. What relieved me was that I don’t have to use these tools all of the time in my planning. Trying to remember everything that should be included in each and every part of the lesson planning can be daunting. By using these tools here and there, it will help to un-clutter the planning process and allow for flexibility in my plans. The three main tools will be very effective in my classroom how ever because it will help to keep the students engaged in the lesson. I would also like to challenge my students who need a little help. I don’t want to label them as being “slow” and give them basic material to work on. I want to push them to keep doing their best as well and have them attempt to understand the bigger questions involved, while still being reasonable.