Why Backward Design?

Backward design is a process that focuses on assessment first and instructional activities last.  It shifts teacher perspectives. Traditional curriculum design often begins with really interesting books or activities we want to teach or are required to cover. We then design a curriculum, often on the go and then decide on some type of assessment at the end.  Backward design forces teachers to look at the big picture with the end goals in mind.  In backward planning teachers set the vision or the essential understanding of their curriculum or unit, decide how students will provide evidence of their learning, and finally design instructional activities to help kids learn what is needed to be successful.

Deconstructing Backward Design:

Backward Design 101
What is Backward Design?
http://xnet.rrc.mb.ca/glenh/understanding_by_design.htm

Current research on intelligence and the brain suggests that we learn best when we are engaged in meaningful classroom learning experiences that help us discover and develop our strengths and talents (Silver, Strong and Perini, 1997). It is through these learning experiences that teachers not only motivate our quest to learn, but also foster the development of persistence and effort that is necessary for acquiring skills, knowledge, and attitudes in sufficientdepth for us to be able to apply them in other settings. The prior knowledge that we bring with us to a new learning situation exerts a tremendous influence on how we interpret this new experience. In order to successfully learn new information, we must be able to construct meaning actively and relate it to our own lives in a meaningful way.

Backward                              Design

Begin with the end in mind.     (vb)To have purposes and intentions; to plan and execute --Oxford English Dictionary 

Develop a clear understanding         

of where you want to go.

Map out the steps to get you there.