Chapter 12

In this chapter the use of backwards design is brought to a bigger level. It can be used for more than the creation of units by teachers. Backwards Design can be used to create syllabus or programs for schools or even at the district level. The versatility of Backwards Design can help schools and districts ensure they are teaching with quality and not just covering content. It can even be used to make cross curricular connections.

This chapter was an important chapter to read because it brings together Backwards Design and shows how it can be applied in any circumstance. I am hoping to take my knowledge from reading this unit and create a syllabus for my English classes next year. I believe this will help me make the intentions of my class clear to students, so they are not left wondering “Why am I learning this?” A question that I am often left facing because normally I just follow the curriculum my school provides me with.

It also gives me the confidence to go back and review the “Why am I teaching this?” It allows me to modify the curriculum to make it authentic and meaningful for my students. By doing this I am hoping to create a better relationship with my students, and help foster a positive relationship with the English language and my students. First, I need to break the habit of following my schools curriculum directly. 

Chapter 11 The Desgin Process

In this chapter I learned that lesson plans are not a fixed subject. Yes, they are created and planned out, but in reality teachers sometimes need to Improvise with where the unit goes sometimes to fully teach the understandings and test ideas before and during their use with students. Also they may need to be changed last minute to differentiate material or personalize material to fit the need of the students. Teachers also need to constantly be reflecting on their lessons and what items they may need to change in order to fit their classes.  

Backwards Design helps to check quality of other types of planning. Backwards Design helps teachers focus the purpose of their units. With any method that you use to plan, you can fit it into the Backwards Design template to see if it meets quality standards. The template allows teachers to visualize their unit as a whole and to check to see if they have a clear purpose and focus for students.

I have herd of Backwards Design before this year, but I have never had an opportunity to create units with its design. I would like to use my past units and try to place them in the template for backwards design to see if they are up to a quality standard. It will also help me focus more on why I am teaching what I am teaching. Answering this question will help me create lessons that are meaningful and authentic for my students. 

Chapter 10 Teaching for Understanding

When planning to teach their lessons in backwards design teachers need to keep the following in mind: Do what works in Stage 3 top reach results from stage one. This will help the teacher keep on track to uncover understandings for the unit, and not teaching just to cover content. When teachers have this understood they then need to pick methods that can help their students understand understandings. To do this teachers should create experiences for their students to actually have using the content.  When students have experience with understandings it is easier to activate learning.

Teachers need to consider when lesson planning is how the text book is used in class. Textbooks are often used as the backbone of a course, but teachers should not be using them like this. Textbooks normally focus on teaching the facts and not actually focus on understanding the facts. In backward design teachers need to use the textbook as a resource to help them teach the understandings and goal of the unit. To use backwards design successfully, teachers need to break the habit of relying on the textbook, and start using it to support their teaching.

Teachers can use different methods of instruction: Direct instruction, facilitative methods, and coaching. They all play a part in lesson planning. To use each method successfully teachers need to look at their understandings and check to see which knowledge is best used with which type of method.

After reading this chapter, I am reminded that I need to focus on giving my students experiences with the knowledge and understandings in order for them to successfully learn them. I often just teach content and do not give students an opportunity to manipulate the content and question it. The charts organizing the types of instructional methods will greatly help when I am organizing my future lessons and deciding how to teach. 

Chapter 9:Rethinking lessons

Stage three in backward design is when teachers start creating their learning plans for their classes. The most important thing teachers need to keep in mind when creating a lesson plan is student engagement and effectiveness of the lessons. They need to create activities and lessons that keep students involved in the learning process. Hands on activities, group work, problem solving are different ways teachers can get their students engaged in the class. Effectiveness can be seen through lessons by keeping the lesson goals clear to students and when students show they understand the purpose for learning.  

To do this teachers can follow the WHERETO model. First they need to keep clear the what the students are learning and why are they learning it. They need to hook student interest in the subject. Teachers should plan lessons that equip students with the necessary abilities to obtain the goal. Reflection and providing opportunities to rethink keep student engagement in the classroom too. Students should also get a chance to evaluate the learning process so they can keep check their understanding. Lessons should also be tailored to what the students need to help achieve the unit goal. Also the unit should be organized in a way that helps students achieve a deeper meaning of the goal and not just memorizing information.

Keeping engagement and effectiveness is very difficult in my lessons. I work with 8^th graders and they have the language ability to communicate in English, but a lot of them are starting to pick up a teenage attitude and not put effort into their work. To counter this I need to focus on creating engaging and effective lessons. I can use the WHERETO introduce in the book to help me put lessons together that my students would be interested in. This chapter has really helped me to view lesson planning in a different way. 

Chapter 8: Criteria and Validity

Criteria and Validity are important concepts to understand when creating an assessment for a unit. Before teachers can give out an assessment to students they need to make sure they have the criteria clear. These criteria will be the guideline for teachers as they correct assessments. It helps to ensure that the teachers are checking work with a clear consistent non-judgmental manner. To help teachers check criteria, rubrics are usually created that list levels of how the criteria should be met.

Besides just created assessments, teachers need to create valid and reliable assessments. Teachers should ask themselves if the assessment aligns to the understandings that they are trying to teach in the unit. If it does not, then there is a significant chance that the task is not valid for the unit. Also reliability comes into play when creating assessments. To make sure that students understand the knowledge form the unit they need to have multiple assessments throughout the unit. This will help give the teacher a bigger picture view of the students’ learning process.

This has made me reflect on my teaching practices and how I create assessments. I need to improve my rubric making skills to make sure they help me properly assess criteria for an assignment. Sometimes I find myself grading the amount of time students speak during an oral presentation just to push them to think deeper. Instead of doing this I should look into the task and make sure this is authentic. Maybe the task is not very engaging to my students.  

Chapter 7. Thinking like an assessor

According to the chapter the main question teachers need to answer when creating assessments is “What evidence can show my students have achieved the desired results?” This question is important because it helps teachers focus on the purpose for teaching their unit. Backwards design also helps teachers to not skip ahead and create lessons before they know what evidence they will use to show student achievement. This helps keeps the lessons authentic and related to the unit that is being taught. Another important idea from this chapter is that teachers need to use multiple assessments to show student growth and development, and these assessments do not need to be all formal assessments.

To design a proper assessment, teachers should think more about problems that students can solve with the knowledge they have learned in the unit. This problem solving method can help students show that they can transfer the knowledge they have learned to another life situation. It goes beyond just memorizing facts and answering questions. Problem-solving type assessments give students a chance to practice using what they have learned in an authentic situation.

This chapter has really helped me reflect on what I can do with my own assessment creation in my own school. I often end up creating my unit evaluations as a traditional paper test that do not challenge students thinking to the fullest. However, lately I have been thinking about applying the backward design to my lesson planning. I believe that this will help me create authentic assessments that challenge my students’ abilities. I think I would get better results from these authentic assessments as well because they will be relatable, interactive, and give students the opportunity to explain why they did what they did on a test. With traditional tests you do not get the opportunity to see the student thought process which makes grading and reflecting upon improvements in lessons harder. 

Chapter 6: Crafting Understandings

This book is making me question my own teaching practices and how I create units and objectives. Chapter 6 is about “Crafting Understandings”. Understandings in this chapter are elaborated more and see as an important inference, transferable idea, abstract, and acquired best by uncovering and creating with them. This chapter reinforces that teachers can’t simply stand in front of the class utter out facts for students to memorize. Instead, they should be giving students opportunities to work with content activity and question it and also building inference skills.

To form understandings teachers should ask themselves, “Students should understand that…” And teachers should create two kinds of understandings, overarching and topical (just like the formation of Essential questions). I interpret, according to the text; teachers should focus on overarching understandings because these give students more of a chance to connect different content areas. They also give students the chance to make real world connections.

Understanding how to create understandings is an important ability teachers should have. I feel that if teachers know thoroughly what they want their students to understand and take away from the lesson then they can create assessments and units that challenge students to critically think. It can also help students understand why they are learning what they are learning. I often remember memorizing facts in school, but never knew why I had to learn them.

In my lesson plans, I never really have focused specially on creating understandings. I always thought that is what the objectives were. But the way they explained how understandings work in the learning process makes me excited to try to start using them. I have always wanted to get my students thinking deeper and more critical. I think one of the things I have to do is focus more of my attention on knowing the understandings I want my students to take away from my units. 

Chapter 5: Essential Questions: Doorways to Understanding

After reading chapter 5, it seems that essential questions are the backbone of a unit. Teachers should base their units on their questions because it helps elicit students to see interesting or alternative views of a topic. It supports students uncovering content, not just learning facts and memorizing information. They need to lead to deeper understanding and provoke students to ask more questions. Essential questions should cover more than just content and/or topic. They need to be able to be overarching the whole subject in order to provide students with the opportunity to ask more questions or more deeply understand the topic.

This is an important chapter to read because it holds a lot of information about forming the back bone to your lessons. Essential questions help teachers be able to structure their units and lessons to focus on teaching students how to show their understanding. Without using essential questions, lessons may not capture students’ interest or they may not be focused enough to keep students thinking about the topic.

After reflecting on my practice, I have realized that I do not use essential questions properly. I normally just take the big question that the curriculum provides and use that to introduce the lesson. I haven’t been using them to provoke deeper thinking in my students. I normally just use it as an attention grabber and by the end of the lesson my students have lost interest in my lesson. I do however ask good topic questions that give my students opportunities to answer with more than one answer. These questions normally have students support their answers with evidence. The next unit I plan, I am going to try and focus more on the essential questions I use and move away from the curriculum based big questions.  

Chapter 4: The Six Facets of Understanding

So far in the book Understanding has been viewed as the ability to do something with knowledge that is learned and used in social relations, but it also has other dimensions that are elaborated in this chapter. They are all seen in some part of backwards design. The six signs that students can show understanding are: can explain, interpret, apply, have perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge of different themes learned about in their school. Each facet of knowledge is important and can be done in different ways in the lessons.

I think it is important for teachers to take the time to reflect and see if they are accomplishing all of these facets in their lessons. These are all key elements to make sure that students are learning and not just memorizing facts. They are especially important because each of these facets helps develop a well-rounded citizen that will be able to participate in society in the future.

Honestly, before reading this chapter I only had one view of understanding which was that students can apply knowledge to another context to use it. I never thought about students demonstrating understanding through empathy, perspective, or self-knowledge. Even though I never thought about it actively, I think I subconsciously added parts of these into my lessons. I usually and form my students lessons to make them aware of their surroundings so they can empathize and see others perspectives and interpret different situations. I normally also add in a self-reflection part to my classes as well. I guess I am not too horrible at not using them. But this chapter has made me more conscious about the different ways students can understand. I hope that as we continue reading I can start to use them more actively in my planning process.  

Chapter 3: Gaining Clarity on Our Goals

In this chapter we dived into on how learning targets are not all created equal. In fact, many times teachers are given more learning targets than they can thoroughly teach in a school year. Normally teachers have to pick and choose which targets are the ones their students need the most. This chapter discussed how teachers can figure out which targets to keep and which to not teach, or unpacking standards. With their current learning objectives teachers can create essential questions to help facilitate general inquiry. Also, teachers can look at multiple similar objectives to pick out the skills they should focus on. After they have the skills, they can pick out the big ideas are the core of the subject. I like to think of them like the theme or topic of the unit. It is important the big ideas help make students aware of what they learned before, and also help them to make unfamiliar new ideas more familiar. Finally, teachers can use the skills and Big Idea to make the core task. The core task should be authentic and as real world like as possible to make it appealing and practice that will help students in the future.

Right now, I have been struggling with picking out what parts of my curriculum are more important than other parts, or what my students need for their future. I think this is because I am new to the curriculum this year. The school created the objectives we have to use, and over this year I have been, little by little, getting better at picking out the Big Ideas, skills, and creating tasks. I used to find it extremely difficult to find the big ideas because the objectives are very ambiguous, but I’ve been working to focus on only finding the Big Idea and skills the students will need for the future.  

Chapter 2: Understanding Understanding

In this chapter we investigate more about the concept of knowledge. According to the text understanding is more than simply being able to repeat facts to answer questions. It is actually the ability to transfer the knowledge that is learned to other situations. Transfer in this sense means to be able to apply knowledge into more than one context. Students should also be able to explain why they use this knowledge to solve a problem or do something else. To effectively have students understand teachers need to ask themselves two questions when lesson planning: 1.  What should students come away understanding? and  2. What will count as evidence of that understanding? The first question helps the teacher form their objective and the second is the assessment that is used to measure understanding of the objective. 

With understanding there are also misunderstandings. These are instances when students apply knowledge learned to a wrong context. It is important that teachers can see these because they can reflect on what happened and figure out why this misunderstanding occurred. They can also use this reflection to help guide the student to the correct way to transfer knowledge.

In my classroom I try to promote this idea of knowledge in the classroom. It is hard though because I have specific content I need to cover for the year. Sometimes, instead of promoting the teaching of knowledge I just teach facts of English to my students. I forget to give them opportunities to practice using their knowledge in other situations. I am now more aware of how I should be designing my lessons to teach knowledge and give opportunities to students to use it. I believe this is the first step in the right direction to solve the traditional teaching problem I can get sucked into.  

Under Standing Backwards Design: Introduction and Chapter 1

After reading the Introduction and Chapters 1 I think that the first concept a teacher needs to know is understanding, which is a person’s ability to connect and apply different knowledges and skills together in a real life situation. Then a teacher needs to know that knowledge and skills do not always lead to understanding. The three steps to backwards design are identifying desired results, determine acceptable evidence, and plan learning experiences and instruction. To effectively ensure students’ understandings grow teachers need to have a clear cut objective set on where the students will end up at the end of the unit. After this is understood the teacher needs to decide which assessments are going to show this growth through the unit and provide the concrete evidence of students’ understanding.  It is important to create opportunities to give feedback to students about their growth with these assessments. Finally, the teacher can start to piece together knowledge and skills that they need to provide to the students so they can properly perform the final desired results.

 In my experiences at my school I attempt to do backwards design when planning curriculum. When I start planning a lesson I have my objective and desired results set. After, I start planning an assessment that shows the students know how to perform the objectives of the whole unit. However, here I struggle with creating assessments for throughout the unit that show this growth. I normally only have a few random assessments set because of administration purposes. After I have the final assessment done, I go through and plan lessons that provide my students with the knowledge and skills to accomplish the final goals of the unit. I also need to work on provided my students with feedback; I am not the most efficient teacher when it comes to providing proper feedback.  I hope after taking this course I can successfully and completely apply Backwards Design to my units.