Assignment # 3 Understand by Design

My understanding of Backward Design is that it is not a philosophy of teaching or an approach of teaching but it is a planning framework. Backward Design is more goals focused for short term plans and long term goals. It centers on keeping your long term goals in view and getting the blend of ‘content’ and ‘performance’ right so as a teacher you can better engage learners. With Backward Design, you can see the difference between desired and actual results. There is a lot of critical and creative thinking involved so you can see what is working and not working for the students. Once you have your long term goals for the course, you then need to ask what follows. This can be done through assessment and instruction. Assessing how you are doing against your goals and what should occur in the classroom instructionally while trying to reach your goal, the use of textbooks is very important. A textbook is not the course but it is a resource to use in support of your goals. You must prioritize the use of textbooks by selecting which chapters should be highlighted, skimmed, skipped or re sequenced. In most cases, it is important to not open the textbook on day one of class but open it by day 3. Aside from textbooks, goals can be obtained through group discussions in which asking a group to come up with two different answers to a problem. As a teacher, you should have design incentive for every course, every lesson, every unit and every day.