Important steps In Designing UnitsStep 1: Determine & Unpack Standards
Step 2: Group Standards into Units Step 3: Identify Enduring Understandings tied to standards Step 4: Decide Themes to frame the unit Step 5: Design Essential Questions within the Unit Theme Step 6: Create Unit Performance Assessment to Assess Priority Standards Step 7: Write Lessons that Build Skills to the Assessment - Inquiry-based Lesson Design - What is Inquiry? - Inquiry-based Lesson Tips - Teaching through Inquiry in Art - Inquiry-based Lesson Design - Inquiry-based Lesson Structure |
Writing Lessons that Build SkillsBackward design is a process that educators use to design learning experiences and instructional techniques to achieve specific learning goals. Backward design begins with the objectives of a unit or course—what students are expected to learn and be able to do—and then proceeds “backward” to create lessons that achieve those desired goals. In most public schools, the educational goals of a course or unit will be a given state’s learning standards—i.e., concise, written descriptions of what students are expected to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education.
The basic rationale motivating backward design is that starting with the end goal, rather than a starting with the first lesson chronologically delivered during a unit or course, helps teachers design a sequence of lessons, problems, projects, presentations, assignments, and assessments that result in students achieving the academic goals of a course or unit—that is, actually learning what they were expected to learn. Backward design helps teachers create courses and units that are focused on the goal (learning) rather than the process (teaching). Because “beginning with the end” is often a counterintuitive process, backward design gives educators a structure they can follow when creating a curriculum and planning their instructional process. Advocates of backward design would argue that the instructional process should serve the goals; the goals—and the results for students—should not be determined by the process. While approaches may vary widely from school to school or teacher to teacher, a basic backward-design process might take the following form:
Source: Lumen Learning
Backward Design. Authored by: S. Abbott (Ed.). Provided by: Great Schools Partnership. Located at: http://edglossary.org/backward-design/. Project: The Glossary of Education Reform. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike |