2. Backward Design Model – 3 Stages
1. Identify desired results
2. Determine acceptable
evidence
3. Plan learning experiences
and instruction
3. Designs 2010 Series
• January 12 Setting the Stage for Instructional Design that
fosters Deep Learning and Embraces Diversity
• January 26 Backward Design: Goal Setting, Enduring
Understandings, Essential Questions
• February 9 Backward Design Stage Two:
Assessment For, As, Of
Learning
• March 29 Backward Design Stage Three: Teaching
for Deep Understanding and
Diversity
• April 12 Differentiated Assessment and Instruction Practices
4. “To begin with the end in mind
means to start with a clear
understanding of your destination.”
S. Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
5. Learning Intentions for Today
1. Understand that effective curriculum
design evolves backward from clear goals.
2. Determine Goals (Big Ideas) by ‘unpacking’
PLOs.
3. Develop Enduring Understandings and
Essential Questions to guide curriculum
design.
6. What is Good
Design?
“Teachers are
designers. An
essential act of our
profession is the
crafting of
curriculum and
learning
experiences to
meet specified
purposes.”
7. “Backward Design”
“Deliberate and focused instructional design
requires us to make an important shift… The
shift involves thinking a great deal, first,
about the specific learnings sought, and the
evidence of such learnings, before thinking
about what we, as the teacher, will do or
provide in teaching and learning activities.”
8. Success for Every Student:
Transforming Curriculum Design
Without a constant focus on teaching that is
meant to culminate in meaning and transfer,
schooling will likely remain mired in
timeless, unexamined habits and rituals, and
limited by incoherent practices and
structures.
10. Schooling by Design
…school change
becomes chaotic
without a curriculum,
assessment, and
instructional framework
derived from the
mission and grounded
in valid learning
principles.
11.
12. Learning for Understanding
Curriculum and instruction must address
three academic goals: helping students
1) acquire important information and skills
2) make meaning of that content
3) effectively transfer their learning to new
situations both within school and beyond
13. “Twin Sins” of Curriculum Design
1. Activity-Oriented Design
“Hands-on without “Minds On”
2. Curriculum Coverage
“Marching through the textbook”
14. Geometry: Lesson Make-Over
BEFORE UbD AFTER UbD
• Look at the • Discuss the
middle school changes evident in
Geometry lesson the lesson after
• Which of the “Backward Design”
“twin sins” are has been applied
represented in
this lesson?
15. Gaining Clarity of Goals
• Danger of coverage mentality
• Need to prioritize & identify BIG IDEAS
• Clarity of goals essential for success
16. Establishing Curricular Priorities
Worth being Worth Being Familiar With
• Different conditions requiring dietary
familiar with restrictions, such as high blood
pressure, diabetes, and stomach ulcers
Important to
know and do Important to know and do
• Canada’s Food Guide recommendations
• Nutritional information on food labels
and how to interpret them
Big Ideas and
Enduring
Big Ideas
Understandings • Balanced diet
Understandings
• “You are what you eat.” Your diet affects
your health, appearance, and
performance.
17. Overall Desired
Results
• Common design thread among
provincial standards, enduring
understandings, essential questions,
knowledge and skills
18. BIG IDEAS
• Transferable concept, theme, theory,
principle or process
• Connect the discreet facts and skills
• Common design thread among PLOs
enduring understandings, essential
questions
• Examples: equity, good triumphs over evil,
molecular theory, problem solving
19. You’ve got to go
below the surface…
…to really uncover
the big ideas!
20. Grade 11 Earth Science
Prescribed Learning Outcome:
• Demonstrate knowledge about the origins
of the universe and about astronomical
entities
BIG IDEAS:
• Big Bang Theory
• Scientific investigation
• Creation vs. Evolution
21. Unpacking the Learning Goals
(PLOs)
• PLOs (and Achievement Indicators) imply
BIG IDEAS
• Look carefully at the nouns, adjectives
and verbs
• Pay attention to key ideas in the
Organizers (e.g. Identity, Society, and
Culture: Canada 1815-1914)
22. The Big Ideas – Group Activity
What will the
students
remember for:
The 40
40 seconds? years are
40 minutes? the BIG
40 years? IDEAS!
23. Backward Design Unit Template
Unit Topic:
BIG IDEA(S):
STAGE 1: Desired Results
Prescribed Learning Outcomes:
Enduring Understandings: Essential Questions:
Knowledge: Skills:
24. Enduring Understandings
• Based on the big ideas and central to the
discipline
• Framed as full sentence statements
• Lasting value beyond the classroom
• Require “uncoverage” in order to be learned
25. Enduring Understandings –
Examples
• Science
– Scientific theories are used to explain the origin of the
universe.
• English
– Writers use a variety of stylistic techniques to engage
and persuade their readers
• Social Studies
– Historical interpretation is influenced by one’s
perspective.
26. Enduring Understandings –
Group Activity
• In your group, or with a partner, develop some
Enduring Understandings aligned with the Big
Idea and based on the PLOs
• Use the examples of Enduring Understandings
in your package to guide your thinking
• Record your Enduring Understandings on the
Unit Design Template
27. Essential Questions
• Highlight the Big Ideas and Enduring
Understandings
• Have no “right” answer; arguable and
important to argue about
• Provoke and sustain student inquiry
• Address conceptual or philosophical
foundations of the discipline
• Raise other questions
28. Essential Questions – Examples
• How do we decide which scientific claims to
believe?
• Are mathematical ideas inventions or
discoveries?
• Does art reflect culture or shape it?
• Who owns what and why?
• How do the structures and functions of
government interrelate?
30. Essential Questions –
Group Activity
• Review the Enduring Understandings you
developed based on your set of PLOs
• Develop 2-3 Essential Questions that will
provoke and sustain inquiry
• Record your Essential Questions on the Unit
Design Template
31. UBD End Results
• Efficient and effective
units with deeper
understandings
• Curriculum design
that meets the needs
of all learners in the
class
32. Where to Differentiate?
Tomlinson & McTighe (2006) Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design. p. 36 Fig 3.3
33. The Mission of High School
… is not to cover content, but rather to
help learners become thoughtful about,
and productive with, content. It's not to
help students get good at school, but
rather to prepare them for the world
beyond school…
