Thursday, October 15, 2015
Blog #7 Diverse Learner Unit/Backward Design
What is the value of Backward Design, what are the drawbacks, and how do you think Backward Design can play a role in your future classroom? Be sure you can make a connection between what you are learning and how you will use it in your future classes. Consult the article "Principles of Backward Design" on Moodle if you feel you need to refer back to it. Blog by Sunday, Oct. 18 and respond to group mates by class time Tuesday, Oct. 20. Remember that posting and responding on time are crucial to authentic interactions, since this is a Writing Intensive class, so stay timely with Blogs!
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Backwards Design is a technique of designing the education curriculum by making the goals of your lesson first before creating the assessment. The value in backwards design is that you are ensuring you have completely taught all of the learning goals before you even get to the assessment. I will use Backwards Design in my classroom to create units that are focused on the goal rather than the process. Which makes sure that I focus more on making sure my students are learning the topic, rather than just the teaching process.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that necessarily teaching the learning goals before getting to the assignment is completely true for all backward design lessons. Simply stating the goals, then teaching towards the lessons may help us teachers be more organized. I agree with making sure your students are learning the topic rather than just the process of how to get there is important.
DeleteI agree with you, I think it's important for students to learn about the topic rather than going through the process and not knowing why or why what they are doing is important. Telling them the goals of each unit and lesson beforehand will be very beneficial for them so they know why they are learning what they are learning and what to strive for.
DeleteI think teaching the process is also important though because it gives students feedback on how you teach. Unless I understood that incorrectly, but I believe this to be helpful for students.
DeleteThe value of Backward Design, is that it keeps you as a teacher on task and accountable for their teaching because they are guiding their lessons to what they will be testing the students over. So all of the objectives that need to be met for the students learning are met. A drawback is that it takes a little bit more time for the teacher but in the end it does save you time because you are better prepared for your unit. In my future classroom, Backward Design will play a role in creating my lessons and units. Since I am a math teacher, it is really important for me to keep the learning objectives and goals in mind throughout my lessons so my students have every advantage to succeed. It is also important because once I have my goals set I then am more able to work on the accommodations for my students and do not have to focus on meeting my objectives in the end.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it will take time to use the backwards design to plan out a unit but it will keep a teacher organized in what they are teaching and save time day to day in the lessons. Also I like your point that it is important to do this because you want to give your students every advantage you can.
DeleteThe value in Backward Design is, it keeps you as a teacher more organized and accountable for your lessons. You start by making your end assessment first so that when you are creating your lesson plans you can make sure you talk about everything you want to assess the class about. This doesn't mean you are teaching to your test, it is just to make sure that when you are teaching you hit all of your points you want to talk about. I will use Backwards Design in my classroom especially when I am teaching something to the students that they have never had in another grade, mostly so I can make sure that they are learning what they need to know, but also so I can make the lessons more fun and interactive so that the students learn the material in the best way for them. Backwards Design also helps when you are making your objectives for your lesson, because it allows you to see how you will meet each objective before you have even written them.
ReplyDeleteI like how you touched on how this could keep the teacher accountable. It definitely does help the teacher stay on track. I was looking at backward design more in the perspective of the students but i really enjoyed seeing this from your perspective.
DeleteI agree with you that teachers should be held accountable for their lesson plans. This will ensure quality lesson plans and improve performance.
DeleteBeing organized and accountable for your lessons is very important as a teacher. I think backward design will be very useful when teaching a topic that your students have never heard of.
DeleteBackward design is basically the idea of setting goals for each unit and lesson first before creating the assessments. This technique definitely has some benefits and drawbacks. I think I as a teacher will use backward design by creating the goals for my units possibly even before the school year starts. This will give me the opportunity to focus on teaching during the year and the process of going through the lessons and units with the goals in mind. I think if I focus on meeting the goals of my units too much, I might miss out on teaching moments throughout the year.
ReplyDeleteI too think I will try and create my goals for units and all of the paperwork type of things, before school even starts. I think this will not only get me ahead but it will make my first year of teaching a little less stressful!
DeleteI think planning ahead will make it easier to adjust lessons or things later that you may not like or not work very well. Even though this can help with organization, I think a lot more work will have to go into planning during the year than just focusing on teaching.
DeletePlanning ahead is a great tool, but I think you should also take into consideration the fact that students will fall behind, school will be missed and things will take place before class and you have to have alternatives ready of your planning will be correct but for everyday situations.
DeleteUsing Backwards design is very important in a classroom. This method will help me in my future classroom because I can think of the objectives I want my students to learn and then base my lesson around that. This way I can stay on track with what I am teaching and make sure to cover all of my objectives. A drawback that could happen with using backwards design is that the objective might be set to high or low for the students and a teacher would not realize this until they got into the lesson. Thus, they would already have it planned out and then would have to do the whole lesson over to fit the needs of the students. In my classroom I would set the objective high with using the backwards design and slowly lower them if the students were struggling or give more time to certain areas then I would have planned out. If they were grasping the idea of these lessons better then I thought and hitting the objectives, then I would try to add in some challenging objectives.
ReplyDeleteRachel, I would have never have thought of the objective being too high or low for the students. That is a major drawback for Backwards Design. The teacher would have done all that work for having a specific lesson and not be able to use it the way they wanted too. But could also be somewhat of simple fix if you are able to adjust your lesson in a way that suits the needs of all of the students.
ReplyDeleteBackward design is a great way for a teacher to set goals for their students. If a student knows what their goals are and what the purpose of these goals are. I think this will be helpful in the classroom because the students and i will be on the same page and we can work together to achieve these goals. This might be difficult because if you were to give unrealistic expectations you might have to change the direction that you were taking the class and this could disrupt the students learning because they were so set on the goals that were given.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you incorporated how the students would benefit from backward design and how you touched on if you set unreachable goals for your students that you will have to redirect your entire lesson, which causes distractions for both your students and you.
DeleteI like how you talked about being on the same page as your students. I think this is very important when becoming a teacher. This concept will help your children achieve in the classroom.
DeleteI like that you hit on students knowing what their goals are and how it's important to set goals. I completely that goal setting is super important in the classroom.
DeleteBackward design involves creating goals before assessment. This also involves teaching towards the end point first. I think by using backward design, it will help me as a teacher because I will be able to understand and focus more on what I want the students to learn, and incorporate my lessons around these goals. The goals are the most important part, picking out a fun lesson is the most interesting part, so focusing on what the teacher wants the student to obtain from it, is vital. This will also allow the students to know what the teacher wants them to understand, so both the teacher and the student can understand where the unit is going and work together in order to get through these goals. Backward Design also allows teachers to be more organized with their planning, and I think can make things less confusing in the end. The only draw back to backward design is having to modify a lesson because it doesn’t reach your goal, however this is not necessarily a bad thing because modifying the lesson may help the students to better understand as well.
ReplyDeleteThese are some great points. I agree with you, the only drawback there is can actually be beneficial because it can help your students learn better. Most of the time, students want to know why they are learning certain things or doing certain things, so by using backward design and explaining the goals first will get them intrigued and they will know what to work for the entire time.
DeleteI like the fact that you pointed out fun. No one really talks about making the lessons fun, they talk about being less stressed out. You still have to incorporate fun into the lessons and make each activity suit each student.
DeleteYou show a good point here when you said the only drawback is having to modify a lesson because it doesn't reach your goal. However, being a teacher you have to constantly be changing things around to better fit your students.
DeleteBackward design is a very useful concept for new and established teachers. This concept of providing the goals you have for each lesson and then creating assessments and lessons based on the goal is a great way to stay on track as well as keep your teaching plan organized. This can also allow you to determine what lessons would be best for reaching your goals as a teacher. The only real drawback that I see is that reaching your goals could not be met due to the pace of the class or the set backs in everyday issues. This could allow for planning to fall behind.
ReplyDeleteWhat goals do you have as a teacher and how can backward design help you get there? Having planning fall behind may be one of the difficulties but I think it depends per lesson as well and not overall goals as a teacher.
DeleteBackward design is the most efficient teaching model. Because the educator can determine the end result before the start of a lesson, the teacher has the advantage of being able to shape the instruction before actually instructing. This keeps the whole process as organized as possible. This will help my own instruction methods because I am a naturally disorganized (arguably unorganized). Creating a route to get to a goal is a lot easier when you know the goal.
ReplyDeleteHunter, I like how you brought up that backwards design will keep you organized as a teacher. That is really true because sometimes myself I am disorganized. This will help both of us and all the other disorganized teachers out there stay on track and be able to keep up with our lessons and teach our students well.
DeleteHunter, I agree that backwards design is a good way for teachers to stay organized and on track in their lessons. I also like how you mentioned that this will help you because you think that you are disorganized. It is good to know a strategy to help you with your organization.
DeleteBackwards design allows teachers to properly cover and establish good objectives when creating a lesson plan. By working backwards, it is easier to stay organized and develop an in-depth plan that covers the subject deeply while allowing the students to learn the material efficiently. However, backwards design is hard to master and can result in the teacher hitting roadblocks and not creating a good lesson. I believe that backwards design will have an important place in my classroom as I will be using it to create lesson plans that cover the material and create a strong learning environment.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteBackward design is a method of designing educational curriculum by setting goals before choosing instructional methods and forms of assessment. In my classroom I will make sure that students are not as likely to become so lost in the factual detail of a unit that they miss the point of studying the original topic.