Week 2 Reflection

This week was a reintroduction to the Backward Design method for creating lessons. It allowed me to take a step back and think about the process of creating all of my unit plans in those first years of teaching and reminded me that while I tweak each of those lessons, I need to keep the end result at the forefront of my thoughts. 

Backward Design is results-oriented and asks us to think about how students are going to learn rather than how we are going to teach a topic. I like that it puts us in their shoes because often times as teachers we think about what will be the most efficient way for us to teach a subject, but that doesn't always equate to the most effective method. 

Backward Design is really "quite logical when you come to understand it, but 'backward' from the perspective of much habit and tradition in our field" (Wiggins, 2005, p. 19). It is broken down into three simple stages as seen in the flowchart below.

https://educationaltechnology.net/backward-design-understanding-by-design/

Overall, this week's readings and discussions have me excited about rethinking the way in which I go about updating my lesson plans. With the adoption of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), I have been tasked with updating and redesigning my curriculum to match the new standards.  So this week has been a great reminder about how to most effectively plan as I moved forward with this seemingly daunting task. 


Resources:
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design (2nd ed.). United States: ASCD.

Comments

  1. Amanda GrayJanuary 25, 2020 at 1:30 PM

    I used the same photo in my post! I think implementing this method is going to be very useful in terms of updating the curriculum. Good luck with that project, I know you'll do a great job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJanuary 26, 2020 at 9:59 AM

    I really lie this approach when it comes to lesson planning and curriculum design. ASD does a great job with the reading curriculum when it comes to training and how we can utilize important standards to teach and concepts that we should be focusing on.

    ReplyDelete

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