Backward Design

Designing Effective Instructional Units with the Principles of Universal Design for Learning and Backward Design in Mind

One of the main goals of designing learning environments utilizing Universal Design for Learning principles is to deliver learning experiences respecting the learner variety. Ideally, learning environments that we create are flexible and allow all learners to participate in ways that meet their needs.

By providing learners options in learning and demonstration of their learning, we place emphasis on the discovery aspect of learning rather than mechanical, or route coverage of a textbook. When teaching to the textbook, your options (in learning materials and activities) are often limited to what the book offers. On the other hand, when teaching for understanding, you are only limited by what your learners are supposed to accomplish by the end of the instructional unit. In learning environments designed using Universal Design for Learning principles, learners have options in how they learn, how they express what they have learned, and also how they customize their learning to fit their interests and goals.

Teaching towards understanding of big ideas instead of simply covering the material out of a chosen textbook allows instructors and developers more flexibility and learners more opportunities to learn. The design process starting with the identification of big ideas, or concepts with which our learners should leave the instructional unit is called Backward Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Backward Design helps learners to focus on, and engage with, the learning goals. Which brings us to another key characteristic of Backward Design: prioritizing. When using the Backward Design planning framework, instructors prioritize their goals. Not every learning goal is equally important. If we want our learners to walk away from the learning experience with a deep understanding of the big ideas and key concepts, we have to plan enough time into our course for them to interact with the concepts in various ways. We can plan to spend less time on learning goals that are less important.

Backward Design enables designers, developers, and instructors to ask (and answer) some important questions about our learners’ learning.

Is the instruction I created effective, or might it be only interesting?
How will I know my learners arrived at understanding?

When you start your design by articulating the desired results and then align all your future design steps with the desired outcomes, it is as if you are setting out on a trip. You have your destination in mind, now you should prepare an itinerary to get you there. You should probably book your flight and hotel, and figure out what you are going to see and do. After your trip, you will be able to determine whether your trip was successful by seeing the difference between your plans before the trip and what sites you actually visited and things you actually did.

Whether you are designing a lecture, a website, a whole course, or any other instructional material, you can use Backward Design principles to help you stay on track when answering the biggest questions that your learners will want you to answer for them: “So what?”

Backward design approach contains three stages.

Indentify Desired Results
Determine Assessment Evidence
Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

How to identify desired results

The big idea that you feel is important for your learners to retain even if they don’t remember anything else from your course is what we are talking about here. This “big idea” can be extracted from the body of knowledge you deem worth being familiar with (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). The “big idea” is something more essential than concepts worth being familiar with. It is more essential than concepts that are important to know. The “big idea” is the enduring understanding. Without this big idea, the course, unit, or any other learning material, would not make any sense. Taking an example from this course, a big idea might be the importance of designing learning experiences for all. If you do not leave this course with anything except for the understanding that designing learning experiences has to include all learners, we (and you) arrived at our desired results.

How to determine assessment evidence

Assessment is the imaginary finishing tape on your learners’ journey to understanding. You know they arrived at your target understanding once they cross the finishing line. You should determine what that finishing tape is. What can you accept as an evidence of your learners’ mastery? Is the completion of a quiz at 80% enough? Does the nature of your big idea require your learners to create something to show you that they mastered the content unit?

How to plan learning experiences and instruction

When designing and planning your instructional materials, there are several factors to be considered. When designing learning activities, your learners should know how this activity relates to the overall goal, how it builds on their prior knowledge, and what are the requirements for successful completion. The activity should also speak to their interests either naturally, or by its flexibility to be personalized. Lastly, the activity we choose or create should provide our learners opportunities to evaluate and revise their work.

To learn more about the three stages of Backward Design, view the Introduction to Backward Design video (4:29).

Transcript - Introduction to Backward Design Download Introduction to Backward Design

If you're interested in learning more about Backward Design, read this white paper by Grant Wiggins, one of the creators of the Understanding by Design Framework: Understanding by Design® Framework Links to an external site..

References

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Retrieved from: http://asbmb.org/uploadedFiles/Backward%20design.pdf Links to an external site.
Wiggns, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design Links to an external site.. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Estimated time on this page: 15 minutes