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It can be difficult for "traditional" educators to switch to this model because it is hard to conceptualize an assessment before deciding on lessons and instruction. The idea is that the assessments (formative or summative) should meet the initial goals identified. Once the assessments are aligned to the intended learning outcomes, the job of in-class instruction becomes much clearer. Instead of asking before each class session, “what am I going to cover today,” in-class time can be devoted to helping students actually achieve the desired learning outcomes – and ultimately succeed on the various assessments.
What is backwards design in a lesson plan?
Every task and piece of instruction has a purpose that fits in with the overarching goals and goals of the course. Backwards Design is a learning theory for designing sound pedagogical courses by starting with the learning outcomes first, rather than starting with your course activities. Please consider the diagram below to gain an understanding of how UbD can help you design good activities and assessments. A defining feature of Backward Design is its alignment between learning objectives, assessments and feedback, and learning activities and instructional materials.
Basic Steps of Backward Design Lesson Plans
These theories collectively validate why Backward Design is more than a passing trend; it's a research-based, effective approach to education. After its introduction, other scholars and educators picked up the concept and ran with it. Some people expanded on it, and others tried to apply it in various settings—schools, colleges, and even corporate training programs. Formative Assessment includes ungraded activities and feedback you provide to students.
UbD: Stages of Backward Design
Some states in the U.S., like Massachusetts and North Carolina, even began incorporating elements of Backward Design into their educational standards. Assessment needs to align with your curriculum (course content) and instruction (teaching methods). Scroll your mouse over the question marks in the diagram to learn more. Objectives, assessments and learning activities are three cornerstones of backward design.
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Backward design lesson plan example & template
In the Montessori approach, the teacher serves as a facilitator rather than a director of learning. Unlike Backward Design, which is highly structured around pre-set objectives and assessments, Montessori is far more exploratory and driven by the student's own interests. Now you might be wondering, "Isn't this how all teaching is done?" Not exactly.
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If you have just a final assessment, make sure that you model teaching tactics or learning activities toward that test as much as possible. As you create assessments and instructional strategies, keep student understanding at the forefront. Educators like Grant Wiggins emphasize that the ultimate goal of Backward Design is not just to teach content but to facilitate true understanding and application of knowledge. So whether you're in a classroom filled with children, a university lecture hall, or a corporate training room, Backward Design offers a structured and effective way to reach your learning goals. This approach is flexible enough to be customized for any educational context. Knowing the end goals allows teachers to craft learning experiences that offer just the right level of challenge and support, enabling students to work in their Zone of Proximal Development and thus optimize their learning.
Each of these educational frameworks has its merits, but Backward Design stands out for its focus on alignment between learning objectives, assessments, and instructional strategies. Understanding how it compares to other frameworks helps educators make more informed choices about which approach to use in different teaching and learning contexts. Another important aspect of backwards design is that it helps ensure your assessment is authentic. All authentic assessment starts with alignment to intended learning outcomes. When we need to change our assessment and/or learning activities, it may feel daunting.
Text Backwards - Online converter
Whatever the case may be, there is an alternative approach that helps instructors avoid these pitfalls and mitigate student frustrations with their learning experiences. Backward design takes a learner-centered approach to course design, facilitating the creation of more cohesive, clear, and intentional learning experiences for students. A learner-centered approach goes beyond engaging students in content and works to ensure that students have the resources and scaffolding necessary to fully understand the lesson, module, or course.
Stage 2: Determine Appropriate Assessments
The Dick and Carey model, however, is a more systemic model in that making changes to components affects other components and, therefore, the changes occur in parallel. In the more linear backward design model, the steps are non-flexible which means that skipping or changing steps is not an option. With intended learning outcomes in hand, the next step of the backward design process is to create assessments that appropriately measure students’ attainment of intended learning outcomes. Various kinds of assessments can fill this role, as long as the assessment task is closely aligned with the action described in the ILO. Since the point of defining ILOs is to provide a design focus for your course and to clarify goals for students, specificity is very important. In your statement of your learning outcomes, it should be clear exactly what the goal is.
The teacher first considers the knowledge and skills that students will need in order to complete the authentic assessment. Specifically, students will need to know about different food groups, human nutritional needs (carbohydrates, proteins, sugars, vitamins, minerals etc.), and about what foods provide these needs. Resources will be a pamphlet from the UDSA on food groups, the health textbook, and a video "Nutrition for You".
Public school teachers will often “teach the test” by focusing primarily on what will be on federal or state standardized tests instead of other content or modules in textbooks. Now it’s time to create lessons and activities for your course materials. Since you already know what your tests will be about, this should be relatively easy. Educators can follow a simple process to develop backward lesson plans for higher education. This approach applies to any field, including business, the sciences and STEM. This is a hard pill to swallow, because I wasn’t half bad as a teacher.
Your backwards lesson planning should incorporate both instructional strategies and instructional activities. Planning starts with defining the learning goal and identifying the central question for the lesson. The second step establishes a definable target, an objective that you can measure.
However, when the goal is enduring understanding, more complex and authentic assessment strategies might be needed to assess student learning. The illustration below shows an alignment between specific assessment types and the different types of evidence they provide. When done well, backward design lesson plans often result in better test or assessment outcomes, which can be advantageous both for professional educators and for online teachers of all other types, like small business owners. Backward Design allows for a more accurate and meaningful assessment of student learning. Experts like Dylan Wiliam have pointed out that because assessments are aligned with learning objectives from the get-go, they are more likely to be valid measures of student understanding and skill. This stands in contrast to traditional methods where assessment can sometimes feel disconnected from the teaching.
Using the ratio example, the teacher would need to ensure their students have a solid understanding of multi-digit multiplication, division, factors and multiples. If students enter sixth grade without competent skills in these areas, the teacher will need to build appropriate units into their lesson plans to achieve the year-end goal of understanding ratios. But in other cases, it might be wiser to use backward design lesson plans. The right backward design lesson plan may result in a better learning experience for a classroom full of students, a private client, and everyone in between.
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