“Teaching is a means to an end. Having clear goals helps to focus our planning and guide purposeful action toward the intended results”. (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005)
If teachers have clear goals and know their “audience”, they will be able to design in order to achieve those goals. However teachers should be aware of certain standards that provide useful frameworks that help to identify teaching and learning priorities, and guide the design of curriculum and assessments.
The backward design invites us to think first on the desired learning and then appropriate teaching will arise. It calls us to make our goals or standards specific and concrete, in terms of assessment evidence, as we begin to plan a unit or course. “Only by having specified the desired results can we focus on the content, methods, and activities most likely to achieve those results”. (Wiggins and McTighe, p:15) It also proposes “result oriented teaching”, to use the textbook as a tool, not the syllabus (coverage), “peer review”, sharing and discussing curriculum and assessment design with colleges and finally “design tools” like a template to support teachers and curriculum developers.
The backward design consists on three stages:
· Indentify desired results: Goals and priority.
· Determine acceptable evidence: What forms of assessment will demonstrate if the students are acquiring and understanding the knowledge.
· Plan learning experiences and instruction: Appropriate instructional activities.
If we follow the stages of the backward design our results will be coherent, and the students’ learning experiences will be as we planned.
