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Overview (Provide an Overview of Learning Context and the Topic Being Designed)
1. Describe the context for your instruction, such as who the learners are, the context in which the instruction/learning environment will be used (e.g., 5th grade science classroom, corporate training facility), the overarching unit in which the lesson(s) might be nested, etc.
2. Describe the generative topic that will be the focus of your design. Justify how the topic would be considered to be generative, detailing all four of the following required attributes for TFU topics:
o central to a domain or discipline,
o accessible and interesting to students,
o interesting to the teacher, and
o connectable.
Part II. Design Components
1. Identify the learning/understanding goals of your design. Provide justification for how the goals reflect the attributes for the TFU framework (i.e., (a) 3–5 goals focused on understanding, (b) explicit and public, (c) nested, (d) central to discipline).
2. Describe the main “understanding performances” of your design. Be specific about the major strategies, sequences, or phases of your design, especially the 2 key characteristics of understanding performances: (1) displays learners’ understanding so far and (2) advances that understanding. Understanding performances should relate directly to understanding goals, apply understanding through practice, and promote reflective engagement. Perkins and Unger (1999) recommend the following general sequence for designing understanding performances:
o “messing around”—engaging in speculative explorations,
o guided inquiry—more organized engagement systematically advancing on the several fronts defined by the goals, and
o culminating performance with a project-like character.
Be sure to describe what students are being asked to do at each of these 3 phases described above (messing around, guided inquiry, culminating performance). The idea here is to provide enough detail that another instructional designer could try to borrow key aspects of your design for a similar context. Describe any technology tools, software, or resources that you may be incorporating into your design and what they are intended to support.
3. Describe your plans for “Ongoing Assessment.” Perkins and Unger suggest that the TFU model requires that students are assessed multiple times on many of the performances that constitute the sequence of understanding performances. Your design of ongoing assessments should meet the following standards:
o criteria are relevant, explicit, and public;
o occur frequently;
o involve multiple sources; and
o gauge progress and inform planning.
Include any illustrations, links to web pages, sample technology screenshots, etc. (as you consider relevant).
4. Provide a 1–2 paragraph reflection on the design process and design model that you applied. Consider questions, such as what were the challenges, new areas of learning, good points, or things you would change or add if you had time, etc. If this is a group project, each person should write his or her own reflection.
Example of reflection from a prior student’s blueprint: “I found putting this unit together second nature and challenging at the same time. My background in language teaching suggests that people acquire a second language by doing rather than studying. I found this consistent with the principles of TFU. Students learn some basics and then gain understanding by applying them to multiple contexts and tasks. In language pedagogy, this might mean teaching some vocabulary and grammar structures and then putting students in situations where they were likely to use the knowledge they had. For me, it seemed obvious that this unit would be built around social interaction. This is very natural to me when it comes to language task, but teaching this content in this way was a bit of a challenge. Overall, I felt that I gained a great deal by putting this unit together. I was happy to learn that some of the things I did naturally were consistent with this theory, but I was also forced to examine some of my understandings and assumptions.”
I need just part 2. Design blueprints range in number of pages, based on how detailed their designs are and how many supplemental pages are included. The general expectation would be for the blueprints to range from 5–10 pages.