Investigating “Understanding by design” in the national music education standards: Perspectives and practices of music teacher educators

The purpose of this study was to examine familiarity with and usage of “Understandingby Design” (UbD) among music teacher educators. UbD (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) provides acurricular approach for the revised National Standards for Music Education as part of theNational Coalition for Core Arts Standards. Accordingly, the co-authors collected quantitativeand qualitative data to examine how music teacher educators conceptualized and implementedUbD. Initially, 300 members of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) servedas participants and responded to an online survey. Responses indicated a low level ofunderstanding UbD, some frustration with communication about the revised standards, and aninterest in creating a UbD resource network for music educators. As a follow-up, 13 participantswho had experience using aspects of UbD in their teaching volunteered for semi-structuredinterviews. From those data, four themes emerged: curricular modeling, awareness andadvocacy, teacher mindset, and pedagogical disadvantages of UbD. Implications includeresponsive professional development to explain and promote UbD in terms of its role in therevised standards. Additionally, music teacher educators may find a repository of sample UbDformattedlesson plans useful in understanding and using the revised national standards.