Implementing Backward Design: A Catalytic Activity Kate Walsh MCEP Cohort 6 April 21, 2007

The Inspiration When reading Grant Wiggin’s paper “Creating Tests Worth Taking,” one statement really stuck out to me: “All real world performers know the target and the standards, not just their task in advance.” (Wiggins, 1992) Reading this caused me to reflect on my assessment practices. At times, I think my assessments can be somewhat vindictive. I have a tendency to increase the difficulty by making my assessments trickier or by withholding information about the assessment.

The Problem My assessments tend to be created at the last minute. As a result, they tend to reflect what was taught and not what I really wanted students to know. This also leads to less authentic assessment in that rigor often ends up being increased by way of tricky questions or by withholding information about what will be asked. Most common reason – lack of time, specifically time to plan assessments in advance of teaching a topic. Result – assessments are formulated to follow what was taught as opposed to formulating assessments from which lessons can be developed.

My Goal To develop a unit using backward design in order to investigate the effectiveness of planning my assessments before developing my lessons.

Specifics A gas laws assessment and a corresponding unit were developed using backward design. Students were surveyed before the unit on their opinions on assessment in the course. Student performance on the gas laws exam was compared to their prior performance. Student’s were both surveyed and interviewed following the exam.

The Plan

Literature Review McTighe & Wiggins (1999) suggest that my typical practice of developing assessments based on what I have already taught is a less than effective, inauthentic, method of assessing students. Wang & Allen (2003) lay out many specific goals (or enduring understandings) for their assessment pieces alone.

Literature Review Grant Wiggins comments on the idea of standards saying, “The standards question is ultimately twofold: What are the essential tasks worth mastering? And how good is good enough at those tasks? The former question concerns the quality of the input – the work we give to students to do. The second question concerns the output – what are the criteria student work must meet, and how demanding should the standard be?” (Wiggins, 1991, pg. 23)

Literature Review McTighe & Wiggins provide a concise rationale for pursuing backward design. They site “a key difference between knowledge and understanding based on knowledge is that the latter is always fluid, transferable to new contexts and transformable into new theory.” (McTighe & Wiggins, 1999, pg 8)

Student Pre-unit Surveys    Results (Reported in Percentages) 5 4 3 2 1 17.39 60.87 10.87 8.70 0.00 6.25 64.58 16.67 8.33 6.12 34.69 44.90 8.16 11.11 44.44 26.67 8.89 28.57 24.49 30.61 7.41 48.15 24.07 3.70 5.56 22.92 47.92 14.58 17.65 49.02 7.84 19.61 5.88 26.32 43.86 10.53 1.75

Backward Design Process

Basic Unit Plan DAY 1 - A brief power point intro to gases, properties of gases, the kinetic molecular theory of gases. DAY 2 – Work on procedures for inquiry gas laws lab. DAYS 3 & 4 – Collect lab data. Investigate relationships. DAY 5 – Introduce Ideal Gas Law DAY 6 – Practice Gas Law Calculations DAY 7 - Exam

Results The exam average, 89.71%, was the 2nd highest out of the 8 exams given at that point in the year. The highest average of the year was 90.76%. The was a notable improvement in student achievement on the conceptual questions. Student’s tended not to do as well on computations problems on this exam.

Backward Design Impressions I was impressed by the INCREASED efficiency of preparing my lessons using the templates. I assumed the process would be very time consuming. I felt more confident delivering the content as a result of feeling much more prepared. I felt as if I was better equipped to communicate where the lessons were going and how they fit into the larger picture as a result of my better planning.

Student Impressions – Post Surveys Very few student’s could say they noticed a difference between this unit and previous units. A few mentioned in cogen that they felt they understood this lab better than previous labs since they did it “by guess and check.” (referring to inquiry) Conversely, several students mentioned that they felt they were not as prepared to tackle problem solving tasks for this unit than for previous units.

Looking Forward My conclusion is that while students may not have appreciated or understood what made this unit different, their conceptual understanding improved. I also know that I was a more secure, comfortable, and effective teacher as a result of my gained confidence from using this method and feeling especially prepared. An area which requires further work is making sure that when I emphasize the conceptual aspects of a topic that I do not do so in a way which takes away from another area, such as problem solving.