Since I have only a few more days left for this school year to be entirely over, I started evaluating this academic year. This process will help me identify my areas for improvements so that next school year would be more rewarding for me. As this was first time teaching in a progressive school, I know that there are some mindsets in my teaching repertoire that I need to change. Upon reflection, I plan to focus more on student learning and understanding because I feel that my lessons are not having that lasting impact on the kids. Hence, I got hold of "Understanding by Design" by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe and read the book cover to cover with the idea of getting the nuggets which I can use to improve on how I design my units. To some designing units with UbD framework is already easy-peasy, but for me, as I don't have much exposure to how it's to be accurately written, needs to learn years after it has become 'hot potato' in education trends. Better l...