Backward Design

In Jim Burke’s book, What’s the Big Idea, he explains the idea of Backward Design. He sites Wiggins and McTighe as they summarize the six questions that teachers need to ask themselves when designing their curriculum.

1. What should students understand as a result of the activities or the content covered?
2. What should the experiences or lectures equip students to do?
3. How, then, should the activities or class discussions be shaped and processed to achieve the desired results?
4. What would be evidence that learners are en route to the desired abilities and insights?
5. How should all activities and resources be chosen and used to ensure that the learning goals are met and the most appropriate evidence produced?
6. How will students be helped to see by design the purpose of the activity or resource and its helpfulness in meeting specific performance goals?

In short, they explain that every teacher needs to follow these three stages in order to produce quality, stimulating, active learning curriculum:

1. Identify the desired results.
2. Determine acceptable evidence.
3. Plan learning experiences and instruction.

The way I view backward design is like an algebraic equation:

z = x + y

results = curriculum + evidence

By looking at a lesson (or anything in life for that matter) by what you want the outcome to be and backtracking, much of the superfluous nonsense that can leak into curriculum (read: busy work).

There are only so many hours in a school year, yet the learning expectations are continually growing. The adage about making every moment count comes to min. When educators simplify their lessons, they are able to focus their students and get the most out of them in the short amount of time they have.