Using Backward Design

Originally posted by Dr. James Lee in Theory and Practice in Secondary Teaching:

Here's a testimonial for Backward Design from a student not in this class. The essay question she refers to could be considered an EQ (essential question) for the entire unit. Consider the value of students being given that question at the beginning of the unit!

"I've discovered that giving the final objective and backward engineering the knowledge has been very successful for my students.

It's amazing how this works across all subjects. When I was observing fall semester, I observed an 11th grade English class. The teacher actually gave them the essay question they would have to answer at the end of the unit on the "American Dream" first along with a rubric and the course objectives. He continually revisited the essay question at different times in the course. Most students' views changed by the end of the unit or, at the very least, they were much more in-depth. At the end of this unit, I had the opportunity to read some of their papers. I was very impressed with the quality of their answers. However, if the teacher had just given them this essay question at the end of the unit, I do not believe I would have seen the same caliber of essays. The students were continually thinking about the end question throughout the unit and they had time to develop their ideas."

A wonderful way to teach for depth of thinking and the development of ideas over time!

Note also that the revisiting of the question during the unit is, in fact, formative assessment, which provided students with a greater chance to develop more complex schema (!) about the question prior to the summative assessment at the end of the unit.