UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN
Grant Wiggins and Jay Mc Tighe
Chapter 1
Backward Design
"The book is properly thought of as a means to an Educational end, not an end itself"
As English teachers, how often have we designed our units around a particular text that we are teaching? This fact is evidenced by the language of the conversations we establish with our colleagues: "I'm in the middle of my Space unit right now, and I'm so delayed; what are you doing?" "I just started my unit on The Physical Description". Backward design shifts us, teachers, into thinking about theme-driven units as opposed to text-driven units, which is a crucial issue to think about. This also opens up a unit considerably so we can take a multi-genre approach and use a variety of texts to gain multiple perspectives on the questions associated with the theme. However, it is not that easy as it appears, because issues like these do not depend on us, on the contrary, they depend on "authorities' decisions" which unfortunately are not the best ones because "buisness are business". Nevertheless, this necessitates that we move away from a genre approach to teaching English toward a curriculum that focuses on the "big ideas and questions" that wil engage students and will help them to see the relevance of the study of EFL.
The backward design model centers on the idea that the design process should begin with identifying the desired results and then "work backwards" to develop instruction rather than the traditional approach which is to define what topics need to be covered. the framework identifies three main stages:
- Identify desired outcomes and results.
- Determine what constitutes acceptable evidence of competency in the outcomes and results.
- Plan instructional strategies and learning experiences that bring students to these competency levels.
As teachers we understand that feedback and assessment does not always equal criticism when we do it, but when we receive it, we tend to find ourselves right back in the student's chair again.
You have described very well our current educational system. We are usually comparing the learning progress based on the units of a book,and, of course, only one single book.
ReplyDeleteI think is very hard to make the shift you mentioned, in first place because we need to invest long hours to think, analize and choose suitable goals and activities to each group of students. And there is another issue to take into account: Do we recieve any kind of gratification to do it? And let's not talk about the $$$$. Finally, as you mentioned, the authorities would be another obstacle to implement backward design.
AHAH!!!! I forgot another problem, in many of the chilean educational institutions you have to be very careful with the way you present innovative ideas like backward design, since when you are too creative you may be a threat rather than a contribution.
However,it is our duty to make changes for the sake of education in our country. Therefore, let's start rethinking of our designs.
Clearly there is incoherence between what the currículum states and what we as teachers have learnt related to give a framework to our lessons. This is produced because the national policies differ considerably from what we already know about educational practices. First of all the focus given to education at national level is completely wrong, because the proposed contents are not designed with the intention to produce transfer, on the contrary they are seen as pieces of information that need to be covered in a specific term, without a concretre aim apparently. On the other hand teachers are not trainned to adapt the activities or tasks that English books normally bring in order to look for their application in real context. These are just some examples of the gaps that separate us from the current educational system.
ReplyDeleteIf everybody followed backward design, I am sure that education would be way better than it is now.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the 'I'm always busy" and "I don't have time to plan properly" are going to be permanent constrains which will be used at all times.
How can we change that? How can we motivate our teams or ourselves when doing it? I think that now that classes are almost over, it is the right time to start thinking of those processes and go straight to the point.
Leave the plan ready when March comes and see how it works.
Little by little, a change can be made and then, share it with the community. Considering how envious teachers are, being innovative can be even dangerous!!!
Yes, we are always worried about covering the units in the textbooks....what a waste of time...sometimes we don't veen know where we are going by teaching that unit but since it is in the program and we are requested to cover all the program, we have no other choice.
ReplyDeleteBut again, let's think of those souls in front of us, waiting to learn,maybe by using the backward design we can shift the focus at leat a little to make our lessons more meaningful and useful.
Vicky
My dear friend,
ReplyDelete"Business are business" Unfortunately, this sentence defines our educational system. And most of the teachers do not realized or do not want to do anything to change their minds and contribute to the UbD approach. But as you say the problem goes “yonder”. Let’s be realistic, unpacking beliefs from our educational system is the almost impossible goal to be achieved in order to gain an effective teaching-learning process. What should we do? Maybe we have to take action from our own practices…
Thx for all your reflections!
Hi Angie!
ReplyDeleteThinking backwards is the key of this issue, and as you well pointed it out there are certain steps we should follow in order to establish a successful design. To achieve all this, we teachers ought to start thinking and talking about expected outcomes and not just activities or contents. But how difficult it is to think backwards when all our lives we have been exposed to a traditional model that is not going backwards, but nowhere.
Dear Angie,
ReplyDeleteStarting with a Backward Design can be a real challenge. In fact, it could be really hard for teachers to be convinced about this approach to learning and teaching. Even for me after being convinced about its benefits, I need to move a step forward: regarding myself as a assesor rather than a successful activity and content designer. This realization cannot take place overnight. It requires a bit of trial and error. As many things in Education practice helps improve it. Even after using Wiggins' template to implemate this succeesful and so controversial design, we have to be aware of its main idea.
Now the objectives come first, the aims that we pursue are our starting point, after which we can think about the activities and contents we should prioritize.
My dear:
ReplyDeleteI'll answer Marianella. In our posts we talk about the importance of sharing... yes it is true, we have to share... But what? And you have given the answer. We are so naive that given the moment of sharing we would only share our sorrow and then a couple of activities... and a lot of coffee... But sharing means sharing problems, activities AND also the outcomes, goals and objectives to achieve... as you already mentioned. By doing that, we will be able to start designing backwards, all together, facing the same last-minute problems and possibly we will get the same results. However, as teachers are not willing to share not even a piece of paper with us, then we have to work by ourselves.
So, it is a looooong journey to get to the top of the mountain. But it is not impossible.
Cheers!