Some teachers only use pre-made lessons and classes that they or their schools purchase, especially those who are new to online and blended learning. Other times, they will create their own class but just follow along with what a textbook has put together, along with any publisher resources that come with it.With "Backwards Design" you start with the end in mind—the learning goals—and then work your way back from there. It is NOT curriculum-driven, and not even teacher-driven. Instead, the design and content is driven by 1) learning goals, and 2) student needs.

A textbook and even publisher resources might still be used, but they do not determine what gets covered in the class. Also, if a pre-made class is being used, aspects for this process can be used to evaluate how well that class is currently meeting the goals, and ways it might need to be modified.

The steps you tend to take in this process are as follows:

1. Determine the learning goals.

2. How will you measure if students met the goals?

3. Decide on learning and practice activities.

4. Carefully sequence the order of lessons.

5. Find or create curriculum and resources.

6. Ongoing development process (refining based on performance).

You do not have to take a completely linear path from start to finish. For example, you might have "placeholders" for learning activities—to figure out later—and then move forward through the other steps. Then, as you find curriculum, it might come with pre-made activities for you to use. The most important thing in this process is to be goal-oriented. Everything you are doing is to help students succeed with the listed learning goals. Also, each of these steps involve several things to consider.

Review the Backwards Design Overview handout below, which gives a little more detail for each of these steps.

Example

Let us explore this approach for a learning goal from a literature class: students must be able to identify character types and also create sample characters of particular types. This is actually a two-part goal, and it is at two different levels of Bloom's taxonomy. "Identify" is at the lower level of Bloom's but "create" is at the top.

For "identify," your students can read stories and identify the characters and their types. This could be in conversation with you or by using a worksheet you create. Then, for "create," your students can create a short story with different character types.

For prerequisite skills, your students would have to understand the concept of "character" and learn about the different types you are covering. For the "create" level, your students would need to be comfortable writing a short story; either this skill would need to be developed first, or another type of activity would need to be used for demonstration. To create character types in a story, usually a student needs to also understand the concept of "characterization" (how do readers learn about each character?).

The curriculum can include videos about character types and characterization, short stories to practice identifying character types, creative writing guides for creating short stories, and anything else you think might be useful to help your students learn.

Learn More about Backwards Design (Understanding by Design)

In this class, you will be applying an approach based on the concept presented in Understanding by Design by Wiggins & McTighe. Grabbing a copy of this book from your local library would be a great idea if you are interested in having this on hand as you work through the activities here.

For now, please take the time to read/view the following:

Understanding by Design, Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University - First, read this page, and then view the videos below.

Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins Watch each of the following videos. In the second one, pay attention to how he differentiates between content topics and learning goals, including the meaning and transfer of learning.

What is Backward Design? - Finally, read this first chapter from Understanding by Design by Wiggins & McTighe, made available through EducationalTechnology.Net