DI & UbD Chapter Three

This chapter introduces the idea of “backward design”, which is a model that teachers should apply to curriculum planning that addresses all the essential questions that will arise in the class that students should be aware of. This chapter mainly focuses on how to create a good curriculum for one’s classroom that has the necessary elements of the subject, but does not overload the student with information. This process can sometimes be affected by the standards that are in place and teachers must find a way to work with the standards and still create a classroom that the students will get the most information out of.

This idea of “backward design” is where that all comes into play and something that I found extremely interesting. With the backward design, there are three major stages that come with planning a curriculum, identifying the desired results by the end of the class, determining acceptable evidence and planning learning experiences and instruction. According to the textbook, this design avoids the two major “sins” which are things that I had never even thought about before, which are focus on activity oriented instruction (common in middle and elementary school) and trying to cover too much information, which is more common in the secondary and college level.

The chapter also says, that while the backward design is a fine way to plan out a class and create a curriculum, it’s extremely important to remember who are the learners and how are we going to teach them. I think that, while it’s important to have a firm grasp on what is going to be taught, the how is more important and will change with each group of students to fit the needs of the group, something not outlined by the “backward design.”