Designing Your Course
Backwards Design

Backwards Design is an instructional and curricular design model first proposed by Jay Wiggins and Grant McTighe in 1998 that turns the "traditional" notion of selecting content that will be taught and created in a course first (before all other considerations like learning objectives and assessments) on its head.

The idea behind the Backwards Design model is to "begin with the end in mind," and make sure you know what you want your students to be able to know and do before selecting content. In essence, this is "backwards" from traditional curricular planning processes, thus the model's name. When working with instructors, the Center for Online Education does its best to help them through the Backwards Design process in order to ensure alignment between objectives, assessments, and, ultimately, content.

The Backward Design model consists of three phases as outlined here:

Identify desired results (i.e. define measurable learning objectives)
Determine acceptable levels of evidence that demonstrate desired results have been achieved (i.e. create assessments that prove that learners have met objectives)
Design activities and experiences that allow desired results to be achieved (i.e. create content and experiences to help learners meet objectives)

Once all of the phases have been planned, they can serve as a "road map" of sorts for your learning sequence, or entire course of study.

Identifying Desired Results

When identifying desired results it's important to think through what learners should know, understand, and be able to do at the end of a learning sequence. When thinking through the learning objectives for a learning sequence (i.e. a module or individual lesson), it's important to consider the overall course goals, curricular expectations, and big ideas learners are expected to learn and make sure that your identified results reflect some portion of those.

It's also key that learning objectives be measurable in some way; as such, they should be written in a way that they could be assessed. For example, while a goal may be that a learner understand or know a process, knowing and understanding are inherently difficult to measure. It's better to start learning objectives with an action verb of some sort that, when assessed, can ensure that a student knows or understands something. This may be something such as "List and define each step in the X process," or "Implement the X process for a given situation" if you want a learner to be able to actually apply what they've learned. Learning more about Bloom's Taxonomy (2001) and writing measurable learning objectives can help with this.

Determining Levels of Evidence

The next phase of the Backwards Design model is to determine appropriate levels of evidence that demonstrate that a learner has mastered the learning objectives to a particular degree. This is done with an assessment of some sort. When considering assessments, it's important to think through what sort of evidence is needed that learner understanding has actually taken place.

It's also wise to consider a range of assessment methods. While exams are most often used, class projects, or instructor's direct observation of learner performance are alternative assessment methods that, depending on the desired results (objectives) may be more appropriate. Exams are typically good at making sure a learner has knowledge of a subject, but sometimes a project provides a better means of a learner demonstrating what a learner can do with that knowledge through direct application. For example, it might be better that a student be able to create a novel work breakdown structure (WBS) for a given project than simply define what a WBS is.

Finally, it's generally a good idea to also consider the roles that both formative and summative assessment will play in your overall course.

Planning Learning Experiences

Finally, while often considered first in "traditional" curricular models, planning learning experiences, and creating or curating content in the Backwards Design model, ideally only comes after you have defined results and determined evidence.

When planning learning experiences and content, it's important to consider what knowledge and skills learners will need to gain in order to achieve the desired results (learning objectives), as well as the teaching methods, modes, and resources that allow students to learn the material best.

For example, it's important to think about whether an "in-house" produced video or a curated Youtube video can teach a particular subject more effectively; or, whether a chapter from a textbook of several years ago, or a newly published journal article covers a particular subject more soundly. When does an activity learners do as part of a group help learners understand a subject better than a lecture and vice-versa? When does a live lecture (or webinar) make more sense than creating a recorded lecture or video? Obviously, there is no 100% right way or wrong way to approach any subject, but it's smart to think through the variety of instructional methods and resources available to you in order to determine a logical course of study for the learning sequence(s) your designing.

Conclusion

The Backwards Design model is an incredibly useful technique that has become a proven and widely used approach in the 20 years since it was first widely introduced in educational literature. It's a logical approach to learning design that really helps to ensure alignment between objectives and content in a learning sequence. So, when you're responsible for designing a learning sequence, remember to "begin with the end in mind," to help make it as effective as possible.

Recommended Resources/Links

Course Learning Outcomes Job Aid
Good vs Bad Learning Objectives
SMART Objectives Resource Doc
Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching: Bloom's Taxonomy
Bloom's Taxonomy List of Verbs