Back to Front Design

What is Back to Front Design?

What do you want students to be able to do as a result of completing your lesson?
What will you accept as evidence of having achieved those goals?
How will you guide students through activities that allow them to practice?

https://cteresources.bc.edu/documentation/backwards-design/

Backwards Design Theory

Terms to Remember: Enduring Understanding, Student-centered, evidence.

Backwards Design Theory

Terms to Remember: Big Idea, Evidence, Learning Outcomes, Learning Objectives, Bloom's Taxonomy.

Assessment

Any lesson should have formative assessments (checks during the lesson) and a summative assessment (final check at the end of a lesson). These 'checks' should determine whether the student can complete a cognitive or performance task. Your objective(s) should mention and reflect what those assessment are. Bloom's Taxonomy verbs (listed below) are used to determine what type of skills we want the student to demonstrate.

For example; If we want a student to install a toilet, how will the student accomplish that? Will they do install the toilet according to a rubric, a checklist, a test (an assessment tool)?

There should be formative assessments that check for understanding as you move through your lesson. They can look like: quizzes, discussions, oral questioning, reporting out, writing samples, worksheets.

There should be a summative assessment that serves as the evidence or proof that the student can 'demonstrate' their skills and understanding at the end of a lesson.

The summative assessment should always have a checklist or a rubric (examples below).

Formative Assessments

Formative assessments are 'checks' that a teacher will use to determine whether students are understanding a topic or content. These checks are performed during the lesson and will take the form of discussions, oral questioning, brief report outs, worksheets, peer evaluation, and quizzes. The goal is to 'correct course' or reinforce if it's made clear that students are not understanding or retaining the content.

Tools for Formative Assessments

kahoot.it - Website where you can create slide decks and quizzes!

edpuzzle.com - Website that allows you to convert a video into an activity or lesson. Complete with small formative assessments as a student moves through a video.

Quizlet.com - Website where teachers can create vocabulary study sets to reinforce vocabulary acquisition and retainment.

Socrative.com - Quiz website where teachers can create online quizzes that is aligned to a standard.

Oral questioning techniques ->

Discussion techniques ->

Summative Assessments

Rubrics

Rubrics are a systematic way of grading students on the characteristics of a project. A good rubric can describe the different levels of achievement in each characteristic or category. For example; If you are asking a student to 'wire an electrical light switch' the teacher will need to clearly state what specific tasks or items the student will have to do. Then each category will describe how many points will translate to the level of rigor or how well they completed that specific part of the project.

Detailed explanations of what rubrics are and what they are used for:

Examples of Rubrics in CTE:

Checklists

Checklists can be used to create a step-by-step method of grading student work. Checklists can also be used as an instructional guide since most checklists are sequential. Imagine not having to repeat your directions all the time! Checklists are usually less detailed than rubrics, but rely on a simple 'yes' or 'no' scoring system.

Checklist Examples

Bloom's Taxonomy to Identify Rigor

Why is Bloom's Taxonomy important?

It's a way to gauge the rigor, difficulty, and complexity of a lesson activity, project, or assessment. In order for students to do more with the content, you may have to set the bar high and expect students to demonstrate how they've mastered the task or technique.

Bloom's Taxonomy allows us to use verbs to describe how rigorous the activities or projects may be. This is very important when writing lesson or learning guide objectives. Again, what do we want the students to do at the END of the lesson?

Bloom's Action Verbs

Action verbs by level

Writing Objectives with 'Back to Front' Planning

Copy of How to Write Effective Objectives

Your objective will drive your lesson because it will state what the student will be able to do at the end of the lesson.

Writing an objective is where you will state what the intended outcome of the lesson will be and what evidence the student will produce to demonstrate mastery or competency.

Objectives should align directly to a task(s) and standard.
Objectives should be explicit - What will constitute mastery or competency? What accuracy?
Objectives should directly reference the assessment that the student work will be graded with.
Objectives use a Bloom's Verb to describe the rigor of the lesson.