Plan-1 | Udlbico

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Planning Your Class

Planning Your Class

Planning Your Class

Planning Your Class

Planning Your Class

Planning Your Class

Planning Your Class

Strategy 1: Backwards Course Design

Why do this?

By using the backwards course design, you take steps to ensure that all aspects of your course are contributing to meeting the main goal(s) of the course. As such, you minimize the possibility of extraneous readings, lessons, and assessments that may feel tangential--to both you and students--to the larger themes discussed in the course. In addition, students will know what to expect from the very beginning and have a way of checking their own progress towards a goal throughout the semester.

How do I do this?

The first step of a backwards course design is to determine the goal(s) for your course. Consider asking yourself, “What do I want students to know/be able to do/be able to answer at the end of this course?” The next step is to create assessments that will allow you to evaluate whether individual students and the class have met this goal. The last step is to create lessons (consisting of readings, lectures, activities, etc.) that will allow students to complete the assessments.

Resources

This link--previously provided in the description of the strategy--offers a brief overview of how to backwards course design:

https://citl.indiana.edu/teaching-resources/course-design/backward-course-design/

This reading provides a longer, more detailed explanation of backwards course design:

http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/UbD_WhitePaper0312.pdf

A blog post that also provides a planning guide that you can use:

http://languages.oberlin.edu/blogs/ctie/2017/02/26/backward-design-from-course-to-class/

Here is a template you can use to help design your course:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10U2RaoU-aBSpcZ2URJl-KPNQYXyPCIoa/view?usp=sharing

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