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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
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Essential Question
Why are the best curriculums designed backwards?
What is good design? How does backward design
support effective curriculum design?
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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?
RDA/CHF/April 2007 5
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?
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3 Stages of Backward Design
Stage 1: Identify desired results
Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence
Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction
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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
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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
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Transferable Big Ideas - samples Abundance or
scarcity Adaptation Friendship Communities Defense or
protection Courage
Harmony Honor Patterns Symbol Technology Wealth Evolution Democracy
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Content Priorities
Worth Being Familiar With
Important to Know and Do
Big Ideas and Enduring Understandi
ngs
Statistics Sample
Worth Being Familiar With
Important to Know and Do
Big Ideas and Enduring Understandi
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
Worth Being Familiar With
Important to Know and Do
Big Ideas and Enduring Understandi
ngs
Big Ideas: Sampling, Correlation, Patterns, Predictions,
Confidence IntervalUnderstandings:
Statistical analysis and data displays reveal patterns
enabling predictionsStatistics can lie as well as
reveal
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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?
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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
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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?
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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
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Enduring Understandings
Based on transferable big ideas that give the content meaning and connect the facts and skills
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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
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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
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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
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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
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3 Stages of Backward Design
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?”
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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…
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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
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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
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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
Worth Being Familiar With
Important to Know and Do
Big Ideas and Enduring Understandi
ngs
Assessment MethodsTraditional quizzes and tests
•Paper and pencil
•Selected response
•Constructed response
Performance tasks and projects
•Complex
•Open-ended
•Authentic
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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
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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
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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?
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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?
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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
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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
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Six Facets of UnderstandingGrant Wiggins
ExplanationInterpretation
ApplicationPerspective
EmpathySelf-Knowledge
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Understanding: the capacity to apply facts, concepts and skills in the new situations in appropriate ways.
Howard Gardner
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Facet 1: Explanation
Provide thorough, supported, and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data
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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
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Facet 3: Application
Effectively use and adapt what we know in diverse contexts
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Facet 4: Perspective
See and hear points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big picture
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Facet 5: Empathy
Find value in what others might find odd, alien, or implausible; perceive sensitively on the basis of prior direct experience
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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
RDA/CHF/April 2007 49
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.
Understanding Misconceptions
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.
Understanding Misconceptions
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.
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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