With the new school year comes a new program called Understanding by Design, or UbD for short.  If the name seems foreign to students, there is evidence of the program at work in the classroom.  You may have noticed that posters with “Essential Questions” have been placed in some of the classrooms, or your teachers may have been talking more about what is to be accomplished by the end of the class.  

According to Mr. Frank O’Linn, associate principal, UbD “is about the student knowing what he should be learning in the class rather than the student following the teacher without knowing what he should be getting out of the class”.  UbD is not a new teaching method being forced upon teachers since the administration has determined that all of the teachers have perfectly acceptable teaching styles.  The teachers are now simply clearly defining the goals of the class.  

According to Mr. Casey Yandek, our newest associate principal. St. Edward is required to implement UbD in order to receive accreditation from North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA CASI) and the Ohio Catholic School Accrediting Association (OCSAA). The accreditation of these groups is needed for a St. Edward diploma to be valid.