Teachers struggle every day to bring quality instruction to their
students. Beset by lists of content standards and accompanying
""high-stakes"" accountability tests, many educators sense that both
teaching and learning have been redirected in ways that are potentially
impoverishing for those who teach and those who learn. Educators need a
model that acknowledges the centrality of standards but also ensures
that students truly understand content and can apply it in meaningful
ways. For many educators, Understanding by Design addresses that need.
Simultaneously, teachers find it increasingly difficult to ignore the
diversity of the learners who populate their classrooms. Few teachers
find their work effective or satisfying when they simply ""serve up"" a
curriculum-even an elegant one-to students with no regard for their
varied learning needs. For many educators, Differentiated Instruction
offers a framework for addressing learner variance as a critical
component of instructional planning. In this book the two models
converge, providing readers fresh perspectives on two of the greatest
contemporary challenges for educators: crafting powerful curriculum in a
standards-dominated era and ensuring academic success for the full
spectrum of learners. Each model strengthens the other. Understanding by
Design is predominantly a curriculum design model that focuses on what
we teach. Differentiated Instruction focuses on whom we teach, where we
teach, and how we teach. Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe show you
how to use the principles of backward design and differentiation
together to craft lesson plans that will teach essential knowledge and
skills for the full spectrum of learners. Connecting content and kids in
meaningful ways is what teachers strive to do every day. In tandem, UbD
and DI help educators meet that goal by providing structures, tools, and
guidance for developing curriculum and instruction that bring to
students the best of what we know about effective teaching and learning.