Welcome to the Unit Planner!

We have created the unit planner to help teachers in the Earth Science by Design program create classroom units based on the principles of Understanding by Design. If you are a participant in the ESBD program and have "logged on" you will be able to save any unit you create. "Save" is disabled for the general public.

The unit planner is based on the three stages of "backward design" described in Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. We assume that participants have been exposed to this design structure and understand shorthand terms such as WHERETO and GRASPS that Wiggins and McTighe use to structure the design process.

The planner has 3 component parts that correspond to the 3 stages of backward design:

Stage 1: Identify Desired Results

Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence

Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences, Instruction, and Resources

Each section contains prompts and text areas where you can enter the elements of your design. Because creating a unit is an iterative process, you may move flexibly from one stage to another. There is no need to be entirely "linear" in your creative process!

As you create a unit you should save it from time to time by clicking the "Save Changes" button. Your unit will be saved in its current state on the ESBD server under your logon name and password. Each time you "save," the old version is replaced by the current version. Your unit is always available to you by logging onto the Participant Area of the ESBD web site. The ESBD project staff also have access to viewing your unit but cannot make changes to it. Only you can change it.

Use the View/Print button to view your unit onscreen at any stage. If you wish to print it, use the print command of your web browser.

Note that you can expand or collapse the size of the text boxes to make viewing the text easier as you are working with it.

Click Stage 1, Stage 2, or Stage 3 to begin using the Unit Planner.