Backward Design Model

TECH4101
Week 8
Dr. Maimoona Al Abri
Week 8
 Backward Design

Based on Understanding by Design

By Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe
What is Backward design?

Backward design is an instructional design model.

What is Instructional design?

Grounded in theories of learning, ID is the

process of analyzing learning goals and needs,
and the systematic development of learning
activities, materials, and assessment strategies
to ensure learners achieve established learning
outcomes.
BACKWARD DESIGN

“Deliberate … design requires us as

teachers … to make an important shift in
our thinking … (it) involves thinking …
about (1) the specific learning sought, and
(2) the evidence of such learning, before
thinking about what we, as the teacher, will
do or provide in teaching and (3) learning
activities.” (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998)
BACKWARD DESIGN

Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by

Design

“To put it in an odd way, too many

teachers focus on the teaching and not
the learning.” (Ibid.)
Backward Design

Learning
Outcomes

Constructiv
e
Alignment
Teaching and Feedback and
Learning Assessment
Activities Methods
Backward Design is Based on:
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
 Three Stages of Backward Design

1. Identify Desired What is it that I want the

Results students to understand and
know and be able to do?

2. Determine How will I know that they know

Acceptable Evidence what I want them to know?

3. Plan Learning What do I need to do in the

Experiences classroom to prepare them for
the assessment?
 Three Stages of Backward Design

1. Identify Desired Learning outcomes

Results

2. Determine Assessment
Acceptable Evidence

3. Plan Learning Teaching methods,

Experiences instructional strategies,
learning activities, resources,
content, & technology
 Three Stages of Backward Design

1. Identify Desired What is it that I want the

Stage 1 Results students to understand and
know and be able to do?

2. Determine How will I know that they know

Acceptable Evidence what I want them to know?

3. Plan Learning What do I need to do in the

Experiences classroom to prepare them for
the assessment?
 Stage1: Identify Desired Results
• What should students know, understand, and be
able to do?

Worth
Being familiar
with

Important to
know and do

“Enduring”
Understanding
 “Enduring” Understanding

• What are the “Big Ideas” and “Essential

Questions” of the project, unit, or lesson?
• What key knowledge and skills will the students
acquire as a result of this unit?
• Begin with the end in mind.
I want students to understand THAT…

Big ideas from your course, lesson plan

Knowledge:
Skills:
Examples:
• Providing students with real-world, problem- solving tools
• Equipping them to individually recognize, plan for, and solve any problem that
involves the content
• Making them life-long learners
Give me an example…
• Content Mastery: Fractions
• You want students to learn fractions to recognize,
frame, and solve any problem that involves
fractional relationships independently.
• SO, design the unit BACKWARDS from real problems
and problem-solving situations that you want
students to be able to solve on their own.
Give me one more example…
• Content Mastery: Grammar
• You want students to learn grammar to speak and
write in any situation for maximum effect
independently.
• SO, design the unit BACKWARDS from
communication challenges and problems that you
want students to be able to solve on their own.
The point…
• UbD fosters transfer of learning to create independent
problem-solvers.
• We equip them with understandings, skills, and knowledge that are
essential to real-life situations.

• But…how…?
 Stage 1- Desired Results
Established Goals: G

Understandings: U Essential Questions: Q

Students will understand that…
Students will know… K Students will be able to… S

Stage 2- Assessment Evidence

Performance Tasks: T Other Evidence: OE

Stage 3- Learning Plan

Learning Activities: L
 Three Stages of Backward Design

1. Identify Desired What is it that I want the

Results students to understand and
know and be able to do?

2. Determine How will I know that they know

Stage 2
Acceptable Evidence what I want them to know?

3. Plan Learning What do I need to do in the

Experiences classroom to prepare them for
the assessment?
Concepts as Big Ideas
Change Justice Exploration
Abundance Charity Environment
Freedom Interaction Communication

Migration Patterns Power

Symbols Diversity Culture
Conflict Cycles Fairness
Balance Perspective Friendship
What else can you think of?
 Use Big Ideas to form Understandings and
Essential Questions
Understandings Essential Questions
✔What insights will students ✔Important questions that
take away about the will reoccur throughout
meanings of the content via our lives
Big Ideas?
✔Understandings summarize ✔Helps students make
the desired insights we want sense of Big Ideas
the students to realize about through questioning and
the Big Ideas then making decisions.
✔Understandings connect the
dots; they tell us what our ✔Engages and motivates.
knowledge means and make
sense of facts and skills.
Understandings

Examples Non-examples
✔An effective story engages ✔Audience and purpose
the reader by setting up
tensions about what will
happen next
✔Water covers
✔When water disappears, it three-fourths of the
turns into water vapor and earth’s surface
can reappear as liquid if the
water is cooled
✔Democracy requires a
courageous, not just a free ✔A free press is
press. guaranteed by the 1st
Amendment.
Essential Questions…
• Push us to the heart of things
• Cause genuine and relevant inquiry into big ideas and core
content
• Provoke deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry,
new understanding, and more questions
• Require students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence,
support ideas, and justify answers
• Stimulate vital, ongoing rethinking of big ideas, assumptions,
prior lessons
• Spark meaningful connections with prior learning and
personal experiences
• Naturally recur, creating opportunities for transfer to other
situations and subjects
 Essential Questions

Examples Non-examples
✔How would life be different✔How many minutes are in an
if we couldn’t measure hour? A day?
time?
✔Between what years did the
✔In what ways does art Italian Renaissance occur?
reflect, as well as shape,
culture?
✔What is foreshadowing? Can
✔How do effective writers you find an example?
hook and hold their
readers?
Stage2: Determine Acceptable Evidence

• Think like an assessor and gather evidence at

several points.
• Traditional assessments used for essential
knowledge and skills needed for the culminating
performance.
 Stage2: Assessment Evidence

Worth
Assessment Types Being familiar
with
Traditional quizzes and tests
- paper/pencil Important to
- selected response know and do
- constructed response

Performance tasks and projects

- open-ended “Enduring”
- complex Understanding
- authentic

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Performance tasks & projects

Why Rubrics?

• Make grading criteria known to students

• Reduce teacher subjectivity
• Maintain focus on content, performance
standards, and student work
Rubrics

“Many rubrics describe a progression of skill from

novice to expert. Our quest, however, is not for a
rubric of skill development but for a rubric that
combines insight and performance related to
understanding of ideas and meaning.”

(Wiggins and McTighe)

Performance Tasks
Examples Non-examples
✔You are a scientist charged with✔Create a volcano with
designing an experiment to baking soda and vinegar
determine which brand of
detergent best removes stains
✔Plan and budget for a four-day ✔A final exam in history
tour in Virginia to help visitors with 50 multiple choice
understand the state’s impact and short answer
on history and development of questions.
our nation.
✔Design a flower garden for a
company with a logo that has
side-by-side circular, ✔Make a poster collage of
rectangular, and triangular 100 items for the
shapes. hundredth day of school
Any assessment you design should…
• Have clearly articulated criteria
• Be valid and reliable
• Provide sufficient measure of the desired result
• Encourage students to self-assess their own learning
 Three Stages of Backward Design

1. Identify Desired What is it that I want the

Results students to understand and
know and be able to do?

2. Determine How will I know that they know

Acceptable Evidence what I want them to know?

3. Plan Learning What do I need to do in the

Stage 3 classroom to prepare them for
Experiences
the assessment?
Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

• Identify the facts, concepts, principles, and the

procedures the students will need in order to
complete performance task or project.
• Identify content for direct teaching, coaching, and
constructivist teaching.
• Select activities, materials, and resources.
 Learning Activities: WHERETO

What learning experiences and instruction will enable

students to achieve the desired results?
How will the design —

W = help students know where the unit is going?

H = hook all students and hold their interest?
E = equip students, explore the issues, and
experience the ideas?
R = provide opportunities to rethink and revise?
E = allow students to exhibit their understanding and
evaluate their work?
T = be tailored to the different needs, interests, and
abilities of learners?
O = be organized to maximize initial and sustained
engagement as well as effective learning?
Backward Design

Evidence
• Learning • Teaching
Outcomes • Formal Methods
• Informal
Learning
Desired Results Experiences and
Instruction
Course Design

• Synchronous and
Asynchronous Lessons

• Examples and Resources

• Feedback Opportunities
 Chinese Proverbs
I hear, I forget;
I see, I remember;
I do, I understand.

Teachers open the door,

but you must enter by yourself.

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@maimoonaalabri maimoonaabri m.alabri4@squ.eduo
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