Backward Design Christina Fritz Assessment Manager [email protected]

Backward Design

Christina FritzAssessment Manager

[email protected]

RDA/CHF/April 2007 2

To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.

Stephen Covey


Essential Question

Why are the best curriculums designed backwards?

What is good design? How does backward design

support effective curriculum design?


K-W-L on Backward Design

K W L

What do you know about backward design

What do you want to learn about backward design?

What did you learn about backward design?


Moving Forward

Standards1st step: Awareness

of standards

Assessment

andEvaluation

Teaching/Learning

Strategies

Topic/Theme/

Resources

2nd step: Placing

standards first

Topic/Theme/

Resources

Teaching/Learning

Strategies

Assessment

andEvaluation

Standards

3rd step: Best

practiceStandards

Assessment

andEvaluation

Teaching/Learning

Strategies

Topic/Theme/

Resources

Adapted from Karen Greenham, Thames Valley District School Board, Ontario, Canada

Two Approaches Assessor Activity Designer

What would be sufficient & revealing evidence of understanding?

What would be interesting & engaging activities on this topic?

What performance tasks must anchor the unit & focus the instructional work?

What resources & materials are available on the topic?

How will I be able to distinguish between those who really understand & those who don’t (but seem to)?

What will students be doing in & out of class?What assignments will be given?

Two Approaches

Assessor Activity DesignerAgainst what criteria will I distinguish work?

How will I give students a grade (& justify it to their parents)?

What misunderstandings are likely? How will I check for these?

Did the activities work? Why or why not?


3 Stages of Backward Design

Stage 1: Identify desired results

Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence

Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction



Stage 1: Identify desired results

Are the targeted understandings… Enduring, based on transferable, big

ideas at the heart of the discipline and in need of un-coverage.

Questions that spark connections, provoke genuine inquiry and encourage transfer

Appropriate goals Valid knowledge and skills

identified

Stage 1: Key Design Elements

TOPIC or CONTENT

STANDARD

BIG IDEA

UNDERSTANDINGESSENTIAL QUESTION


Big Ideas

Central and organizing notion Core idea in a subject Provides a conceptual lens for

prioritizing content Serves as an organizer for connecting

important facts, skills, and actions Transfers to other contexts Manifests itself in a variety of ways

within disciplines Requires uncoverage because its an

abstraction


Transferable Big Ideas - samples Abundance or

scarcity Adaptation Friendship Communities Defense or

protection Courage

Harmony Honor Patterns Symbol Technology Wealth Evolution Democracy


Content Priorities

Worth Being Familiar With

Important to Know and Do

Big Ideas and Enduring Understandi

ngs

Statistics Sample




ngs

History of the bell curve

Key contributors to the development of statistics (Pascal)

Measures of Central Tendency

Statistical TerminologyData Displays

Statistical Formulas

Statistics Sample




ngs

Big Ideas: Sampling, Correlation, Patterns, Predictions,

Confidence IntervalUnderstandings:

Statistical analysis and data displays reveal patterns

enabling predictionsStatistics can lie as well as

reveal


BREAK


Essential Questions

Guide the student inquiry and focus instruction for uncovering the important ideas of the content

What specifically about the idea or topic do you want student to come to understand?


Essential Questions

Have no right answer and are meant to be argued

Designed to provoke & sustain student inquiry, while focusing learning & performances

Address the conceptual or philosophical foundations of a discipline

Raise other important questions Naturally and appropriately recur Stimulate vital, ongoing rethinking of big

ideas, assumptions and prior lessons


Sample Essential Questions

What is a number? How should we

balance the rights of individuals with the common good?

Can microeconomics inform macroeconomics?

What can we learn from the past?

How does art reflect, as well as shape, culture?

How does where we live influence how we live?

What are the limits of mathematical representation and modeling?

What makes a great story?


Tips for Using EQs

Organize the unit of study around the questions – make the content answer the question

Tasks are linked to the question Make less be more Share your questions with the faculty to

promote school wide questions Publish the questions to students and

parents


Enduring Understandings

Based on transferable big ideas that give the content meaning and connect the facts and skills


Comparing Enduring Understandings

PROPERLY FRAMEDStudents will

understand that… In a free-market

economy, price is a function of supply and demand

Statistical analysis & data display often reveal patterns that may not be obvious

IMPROPERLY FRAMED

Students will understand that…

That the price of long distance calls has declined over the past decade

How to calculate mean, median and mode


Knowledge and Skills

Discrete objectives that we want students to know and be able to do

Three kinds: Building blocks for the desired understanding Knowledge and skills stated or implied in the

goals ‘Enabling’ knowledge and skills needed to

perform the complex assessment tasks identified in stage 2


Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence

Consider the evidence of learning: Students exhibit understanding

through authentic performance tasks Appropriate criterion-based scoring

tools are used to evaluate student outcomes

A variety of assessment formats Assessments are used as feedback Students self assess


Jay McTighe

The primary purpose of classroom assessment is to inform teaching and improving student learning, not to sort and select students or to justify a grade



At Stage 2 there is a departure from conventional practice. Instead of moving from target to teaching ask “What would count as evidence of successful teaching?”

Before learning activities are planned ask “What counts as evidence of understanding?”


ALIGNMENT

Stage 1

If the desired result is for the learner to…

Stage 2

Then, you need evidence of the student’s ability to…

So, the assessments need to include something like…


3 Types of Classroom Assessment

DIAGNOSTICFORMATIVESUMMATIVE


DIAGNOSTIC

Assessment that precedes instruction, checks students’ prior knowledge and identifies misconceptions, interests, and learning style preferences Provide information to assist planning

and guide differentiated instruction Pretests, student survey, skills

check, K-W-L


FORMATIVE

On-going assessments provide information to guide teaching and learning for improving learning and performance Formal and Informal

Quiz, oral questioning, observation, draft work, think aloud, dress rehearsal, portfolio review


SUMMATIVE

Culminating assessments are conducted at the end of a unit, course or grade level to determine the degree of mastery or proficiency according to identified achievement targets Evaluative in nature resulting in a score

or a grade Test, performance task, final exam,

culminating project or performance, work portfolio




ngs

Assessment MethodsTraditional quizzes and tests

•Paper and pencil

•Selected response

•Constructed response

Performance tasks and projects

•Complex

•Open-ended

•Authentic


Collecting Evidence

Effective evidence requires multiple sources of evidence – a photo album not a single snapshot Performance tasks Academic prompts Quiz and test items Informal checks


Tips for Effective Scoring Goals

Includes the most important traits, given the purpose of the assessment and the qualities of effective performance

Score the quality not quantity Focus on content, substance and

effect rather than on mechanics Look at the overall result


Assessor’s Questions

Where should we look and what should we look for to determine the extent of student understanding?

What kind of assessment tasks and evidence needs will anchor our curricular units and thus guide our instruction?


Assessor’s Questions

Given our account of the facets, what follows for assessment?

What evidence of in-depth understanding as opposed of superficial or naïve understanding?


Think like an assessor

Where should we look to find hallmarks of understanding? Consider the necessary evidence Kinds of performance or behavior

indicative of understanding


Think like an assessor

What should we look for in determining and distinguishing degrees of understanding? Focus on the most salient and revealing

criteria for identifying and differentiating levels or degrees of understanding using criteria and rubrics to sort work by quality along a continuum



Six Facets of UnderstandingGrant Wiggins

ExplanationInterpretation

ApplicationPerspective

EmpathySelf-Knowledge


Understanding: the capacity to apply facts, concepts and skills in the new situations in appropriate ways.

Howard Gardner


Facet 1: Explanation

Provide thorough, supported, and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data


Facet 2: Interpretation

Tell meaningful stories; offer apt translations; provide a revealing historical or personal dimension to ideas and events; make it personal or accessible through images, anecdotes, analogies and models


Facet 3: Application

Effectively use and adapt what we know in diverse contexts


Facet 4: Perspective

See and hear points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big picture


Facet 5: Empathy

Find value in what others might find odd, alien, or implausible; perceive sensitively on the basis of prior direct experience


Facet 6: Self-Knowledge

Perceive the personal style, prejudices, projections, and habits of mind that both shape and impede our own understanding; we are aware of what we do not understand and why understanding is so hard


Thinking about Understanding…

Men don’t understand women

Does anyone here understand French?

She knows the answer but does not understand why it is correct

I now understand that I was mistaken

I didn’t really understand it until I had to use it

Although I disagree, I can understand the opposition’s point of view

Understanding Misconceptions

Facet 1: Explanation

• If the student gives a correct answer to a complex and demanding question, s/he must have an in-depth understanding.

• If the student cannot write an explanation of his/her views, she lacks understanding.

Facet 2: Interpretation

• If the student offers an engaged and rich response to literature, he understands that work of literature.


Facet 3: Applications

• Any effective performance with knowledge indicates understanding of that knowledge.

• Any ineffective performance with knowledge indicates a lack of understanding of that knowledge.

• Application means that the student can correctly answer teacher-assigned problems based on what was taught.

Facet 4: Perspective

• Having an opinion equals having perspective.

• Perspective implies relativism.


Facet 5: Empathy

• Empathy is affect, synonymous with sympathy or heartfelt rapport.

• Empathy requires agreement with the point of view in question.

Facet 6: Self-Knowledge

• Self-knowledge equal self-centeredness.


Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction

Will the students… Know where they are going with their learning

goals Know why the materials are important What is required of them Be hooked – engaged Have opportunities to explore and experience

big ideas and receive instruction to equip them for the required performances

Have opportunities to rethink, rehearse, revise and refine

Have an opportunity to evaluate their work and reflect on their learning

WHERETO

WStudents know WHERE they’re going, WHY and WHAT is required of them

H HOOKED – engaged in the big idea

EOpportunities to EXPLORE and EXPERIENCE

ROpportunities to RETHINK,REHEARSE, and REFINE

E Opportunity to EVALUATE their work

T TAILORED and flexible for all students

OORGANIZED for engagement and effectiveness


Chinese Proverb

I hear, I forgetI See, I rememberI do, I understand

Documents

Backward Design Christina Fritz Assessment Manager [email protected]