Agreed, teaching is not a neat line from A to B! To me, UbD is a way to structure chaos. Meaning, “we know where we’re going, but there’s more than one way to get there, even though we’ll be learning what we need to along the way.”

The biggest challenge I face is the time constraints put on teaching. You know how it goes: teach ____ for 2 weeks, then move on NO MATTER WHAT. In my first year as a lab teacher, I ran into the unfinished project problem a lot. This year I am risking not following our Planning and Scheduling timeline, but rather teaching a project until it’s done.

True UbD methodology can be followed through Project Based Learning, which incorporates all the academic areas.

Thanks for a thought provoking post. Good teaching is never too tidy!

I appreciate your comments–it’s good to find others who are struggling with the same challenges and finding ways to cope.

I think one of the things that can happen to teachers who are constrained by district timelines and curriculum documents is that you can become more focused on the immediate content instead of the end goal.

It’s like driving on a highway in the fog. You stop thinking about your destination or even the next turn and focus almost entirely on the road right in front of you. All of your attention is now on staying between the yellow and white lines, and avoiding whatever might suddenly appear in the beam of your headlights.

Just like you both seem to be doing, we need to pull over to the side once in a while and remember the bigger reason we’re doing what we’re doing. Maybe there is another road along higher ground that will get us out of the fog and take us where we need to go a slightly different way.

Understand that I’m not in any way opposed to having standards or guidelines for curriculum and instruction. Quite the opposite. I just think it’s important to remember that they are just maps. We have to use the map to plan the specific route our kids are going to take.