Backward Design & Alignment in Lesson Planning

It is helpful to consider different types of teaching and learning frameworks that you can use to structure your course in order to best serve your student population. One approach to consider for aligning the content, assessments and learning objectives within your course, is the backward design model.

 

What is Backward Design?

The Backward Design model involves beginning your course or lesson design by FIRST writing your I Links to an external site.ntended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) Links to an external site. (aka., learning objectives) for your students. The next step is to ensure that there is alignment between these ILOs and the formative/summative assessments, and instructional strategies/activities within your course. This is “backwards” to the traditional method of instructional design, where you start off with the course content.

Backward Design can be used at the program-level: aligning a number of courses with your program’s learning outcomes (PLOs), the course-level: aligning overall course components with your big-picture courses learning outcomes (CLOs), or the lesson-level, which will be discussed in more detail below.

 

How to use Backward Design for lesson planning*?

Wiggens and McTighe (2005), describe the three steps of backward design, below:

 

Summary of the 3 steps in Backward Design: 1) Identify desired results, 2) Determine acceptable evidence, 3) Plan learning experiences and instruction  

 

STEP 1: Identify desired learning results. 

What should students know and be able to do at the end of the lesson? These are your ILOs! These typically are written starting with the phrase: “By the end of the lesson, students will be able to…” and contain a combination of action words/verbs from Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy Links to an external site. + a noun/object (the knowledge being learned), making them specific and measurable.

      • E.g., By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
        • CREATE a LEARNING PORTFOLIO
        • DISCUSS how EQUITY GAPS IMPACT CHILD EDUCATION 
        • DESIGN a COMPLEX EXPERIMENT

 

STEP 2: Determine acceptable evidence of achieving learning results.

How will you determine the degree to which students have achieved these learning outcomes? These are your formative and summative assessments Links to an external site.. 

 

STEP 3: Plan ‘aligned’ learning experiences, activities, instruction, & resources

Use your ILOs to determine which activities/instructional methods will help students be able to provide evidence that they have met, or are in process of meeting, the learning outcomes. Tip: Keep students engaged by choosing Active Learning Strategies. Links to an external site.

      • E.g., Provide time in the lesson for students to create a draft portfolio, by combining their portfolio materials, then to exchange portfolios with a peer for feedback and suggestions.
      • E.g., Provide time in the lesson for research on, and then a discussion about, equity gaps in K-12 education
      • E.g., Have the class work together to design a complex experiment that they can run in class or online later that term

 

*Material and image are adapted from the MIT Teaching + Learning Lab: https://tll.mit.edu/teaching-resources/course-design/backward-design/ Links to an external site. , & from Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd edition). ASCD.

 

 

The video below provides an overview of the process and aligning the learning objectives with the learning content and assessments.

Alignment and Backward Design Links to an external site. (2:52)

 

Note: Click on the CC icon at the bottom of the video to turn on closed captions.