Yuyang,
I really appreciated how you connected UbD to your own experience learning programming. Your point about only truly understanding code structures once you saw their purpose resonates with me. I’ve had a similar realization in teaching math, when students only memorize steps for solving problems, they often forget them later. But when they see why those steps matter in solving real-world problems, their learning sticks. That’s exactly what UbD emphasizes: keeping the end goal visible so learning feels purposeful.
Your reflections on design thinking also stood out, especially your example of group coding work. The way you framed empathy, not just as being kind, but as intentionally designing collaboration to meet everyone’s needs, made me think about how I set up group projects in my own practicum. I sometimes default to dividing tasks evenly, but your example makes me wonder how much stronger outcomes would be if I considered student strengths, schedules or preferred working styles from the start.
I also liked your comparison of Bloom’s and SOLO. I usually lean on Bloom’s for writing objectives, but I hadn’t thought as much about how SOLO captures the quality of learning. Do you see yourself combining them, using Bloom’s for planning, then SOLO for reflection?
