What is Backwards Design? Module 1 What is Backwards Design?

The Three Phases of UbD Establish Your Goals Plan How You Will Assess Learning Plan Your Instruction

Goals “The idea is to plan backward from worthy goals—the transferable concepts, principles, processes, and questions that enable students to apply their learning in meaningful and authentic ways.” Jay McTighe

How are goals tranferable? “[Transfer is] the ability to extend what has been learned in one context to new contexts. Educators hope that students will transfer learning from one problem to another within a course, from one year in school to another, between school and home, and from school to workplace. Assumptions about transfer accompany the belief that it is better to broadly “educate” people than simply “train” them to perform particular tasks.” From How People Learn

Assessments: 3 Forms Summative Assessment Formative Assessment “Authentic” Assessment

Summative Assessment “Summative Assessments are used to evaluate student learning, skill acquisition, and academic achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period—typically at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or school year.” a midterm exam a final project a paper a senior recital

Summative Assessment Use a summative assessment for finished/final projects. Use summative assessment to evaluate the strength of a unit of instruction (e.g., what can I improve next time?) To assign grades

Formative Assessment “The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning.” draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture turn in a research proposal for early feedback Exit slips Three-minute paper

Formative Assessment Use formative assessments everyday! Use them to adjust teaching “on the go.” Use them to determine ”what works.” Do not use them to assign grades

“Authentic” Assessment “… [is] a form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills.” writing an obituary for a historical figure developing a road trip budget recording a podcast drafting a classroom constitution

“Authentic” Assessment Use authentic assessment to evaluate “transfer” Use them with a rubric! The authentic task is also the authentic assessment Use at least one (1) authentic assessment in your UbD unit

Group Discussion Activity (50 minutes) Designate a person to read the article to your group. Take notes Discuss the article (all members of the group will contribute. A designated note-taker will record the highlights of your discussion and share with the class.