Backwards Design
What you'll find here...
Below are resources meant to support teachers as they plan their courses with a backwards design lens.
The backward design approach has instructors consider the learning goals of the course first. These learning goals embody the knowledge and skills instructors want their students to have learned when they leave the course. Once the learning goals have been established, the second stage involves consideration of assessment. The backward design framework suggests that instructors should consider these overarching learning goals and how students will be assessed prior to consideration of how to teach the content. For this reason, backward design is considered a much more intentional approach to course design than traditional methods of design.
Bowen, R. S. (2017). Understanding by Design. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [5 Aug 2023] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/understanding-by-design/
Adapted from an Understanding by Design unit template, this template can be used to design a unit plan with learning experiences that intentionally build out from content concept, content skill, and core competency-specific learning targets. These experiences should culminate in a comprehensive summative assessment that will enable teachers to understand each student’s proficiency levels relative to those concepts, skills, and targets.
The template is divided into 3 main sections: “Desired Results,” “Summative Assessment Evidence,” and “Learning Plan.”
In the “Desired Results” section, teachers list the content skills and content concepts being practiced and assessed throughout the unit. These sections are further separated into domains, standards, and learning targets. Teachers also record the ESL/WIDA standards being addressed, the essential question guiding students’ curiosity and exploration throughout the unit, as well as the enduring understanding that the teacher hopes will serve as an “answer to said question” and function as the greater “take away” from the work. The ELA 12 example linked below focuses on improving students’ capacity to read. Specifically, Reading Literature Standard 7 and Reading Informational Text Standard 7 are the power standards prioritized, with Reading Informational Text Standard 6 serving as a support standard. The bullets below the standards are the learning targets, or component parts, that make up each standard. Each part is interrelated and necessary, but they are expanded upon and visually represented in this way to encourage a more methodical approach to instruction and assessment. Once a teacher has an intimate understanding of not only the standards but also the component parts of that standard, they can then design an appropriate summative assessment for students to show what they can do relative to those skills and concepts.
Next comes the “Summative Assessment Evidence” section of the template. This is where a teacher links to the rubric being used to assess their summative and records the task, purpose, audience, process, and self-assessment protocols that will be communicated to students about the culminating activity of the unit. The text in the ELA 12 example is identical to what would be shared with students. What’s most important, though, is that the assessment is designed with the specific skills and concepts that have functioned as the focus of the unit in mind. Students must be able to see explicit connections between what they were taught, what they practiced, and how they are finally being assessed. Ideally, this would be shared with students at the beginning of a unit so that they could see how the standards, skills, and targets they practiced would factor into their final assessment.
Last in the backwards design process comes the “Learning Plan.” Once teachers have internalized the skills and concepts they want students to practice and they have developed an effective summative assessment for students to complete by the end of the unit, they can develop a set of learning experiences that will help students grasp, practice, develop, explore, and deepen their capacity with those skills and concepts. The template provides a space for teachers to consider how the ideas encapsulated by a given unit connect/relate to other units throughout a course as well as space to consider how best to introduce students to the ideas present within this specific unit, but the heart of this section is about outlining sequential learning experiences that artfully and explicitly connect to the standards listed as “Desired Results”. Even if a “learning experience” takes more than 1 day for students to accomplish, the priority is for those experiences to progressively and iteratively build upon one another.
This connects to Standard 1 of the Teacher Evaluation Rubric: Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment, “promotes the learning and growth of all students by providing high quality and coherent instruction, designing and administering authentic and meaningful student assessments.”
Adapted from a Great Schools Partnership resource of a similar name, this template can be used to design a comprehensive summative assessment that is well-aligned to the content concepts and content skills that serve as the focus of your units. It can also help to ensure that the assessment is accessible to all students, relevant to students’ lives, rigorous, and explicit in terms of the desired outcomes that students are responsible for.
Sample ELA 12 Research Project
Sample Biology Assessment
Sample Art/Drawing Assessment
This connects to Standard 1 of the Teacher Evaluation Rubric: Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment, “designing and administering authentic and meaningful student assessments.”
Assessment Checkpoints
One way to think about assessments is as “checkpoints” for student learning, or moments to pause and collect evidence to better understand how students are doing in terms of understanding and using the skills or concepts they have been practicing. When designing a unit of study, striking the right balance between low, medium, and high-stakes assessments is just as important as determining when to give them. Page 2 of the document linked below provides general descriptions of different kinds of assessments teachers might consider employing while working with students as well as a multi-unit overview of how those assessments could gradually build in rigor over time.
This connects to Standard 1 of the Teacher Evaluation Rubric: Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment, “designing and administering authentic and meaningful student assessments" and “instructional practices that establish high expectations, create a safe and effective classroom environment.”
This template can be used to ensure that your course syllabus includes all of the necessary elements. Namely, teachers should provide students and caregivers with the name of the course, contact information for the teacher(s), a course description, an explanation of how students’ skills will be assessed and graded, an explanation of how students’ Habits of Work will be assessed and graded, a list of important classroom policies and procedures, a description of how plagiarism will be handled, and links to any relevant resources and support items. All titles and descriptions of processes, policies, and procedures should match corresponding descriptions in RPS and/or RHS student handbooks, so be sure to double check when possible. Lastly, text should be student and caregiver-friendly as well as translated appropriately.
This connects to Standard 1 of the Teacher Evaluation Rubric: Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment, “designing and administering authentic and meaningful student assessments" and “instructional practices that establish high expectations, create a safe and effective classroom environment.”
The folder linked above provides several strategies to assist teachers in differentiating for students with a wide range of skills and learning styles. You can also find more information on these resources on the Differentiation Strategies page of this site.
This connects to Standard 1 of the Teacher Evaluation Rubric: Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment, “promotes the learning and growth of all students by providing high quality and coherent instruction, designing and administering authentic and meaningful student assessments, analyzing student performance and growth data, using this data to improve instruction, providing students with constructive feedback on an on-going basis, and continuously refining learning objectives” and "through instructional practices that establish high expectations, create a safe and effective classroom environment, and demonstrate cultural proficiency.”
CURRICULUM, PLANNING, ASSESSMENT NAVIGATION