Backwards Design
Backwards Design
This is a process of intentionally designing our course using the WHY we discovered in the first part of this Schema. You can start with what you want your students to know and do, and work your way through assessments, assignments, and activities that will get them there. First, we’re going to start by aligning our WHYs with what we want the students to understand, or our overarching big picture learning goals. These are our Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions.
Further Reading (opens to link in library catalog)
- Dee Fink Design for Significant Learning
- Understanding by Design by Wiggins and Mctighe
- Small Teaching Online by Darby Flower
"But if I don't get all the way there by the time the semester starts, if I've really thought through the learning outcomes, and I’ve really thought their assessment [...] So I'm really thinking through those learning outcomes, I'm thinking through assessment, and if I don't have every single little mini thing done, I'm going to have the big milestones done and then I'll be able to just keep up a couple weeks ahead, maybe a day ahead."
-Bonni Stachowiak (article citation here)
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