[SPECIAL]: Understanding By Design – A Tribute to the Work of Grant Wiggins

Joey Lee

2014 New Hampshire Teacher of the Year

Twitter: @JoeyLeeNHTOY

On the program this week, Teachers of the Year Radio welcomes Joey Lee, a social studies teacher and ice hockey coach at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, NH, who is the 2014 New Hampshire Teacher of the Year.

Joey has been teaching for seven years, all of them at Pinkerton Academy. He brings a very special passion and energy to his teaching, which illustrate his philosophy and conviction that all students can learn and making every kid better. Joey is regarded for his student-centered approach to teaching. He relates content to real life experience, engages students’ interests with a flexible, thematic, and clear curriculum establishing mutually respectful and honest relationships built on a collaborative effort with each student.

In this episode, Joey discusses how his teaching has been influenced by the work of the late Grant Wiggins, who recently and unexpectedly passed away. Grant’s seminal work on authentic learning, among other student-centered torches he carried, has had a lasting impact on countless teachers in the profession and education as a whole. We honor Grant’s work with an attempt to further spread the word about how his legacy has impacted teachers and students, as Joey talks with us about Understanding By Design.

The age-old question: how do we get kids to be interested in what schools try to teach them? Student engagement is one thing, but gaining true interest from kids in any subject matter is another. Myriad strategies and methods have tried to solve the mystery of how to get kids to want to learn, and furthermore how to get them to truly understand, the core curriculum. But what if instead of trying to force the content to fit students’ interests, we designed learning with the students in mind in the first place, and then worked backwards to our curriculum and lessons? The Understanding By Design framework seeks to bring authentic learning to classrooms by doing just this. Tune in to this week’s episode to learn how.

Listen to Episode 002 — Joey Lee — Understanding By Design

• Understanding By Design (UBD) Whitepaper
• The Research Behind UBD
• Grant Wiggin’s Blog
• The Understanding By Design Framework For Authentic Learning

This program is produced by the BAM! Radio Network. The hosts are Gary Abud & Steve Perkins