Introduction to Backward Design in Teaching
Teaching continues to adapt and evolve as society moves deeper into the twenty-first century. Backward design is a valuable strategy for creating meaningful lessons. The philosophy underlying backward design is teaching with an eye toward the “end goal” or learning point. This response will review the writer’s previous experience with planning classes, assess it according to the results-focused approach, and prove the need for a results-oriented approach for lesson planning.
Applying Results-Focused Lesson Planning: Fire Safety Example
The experience I had instructing fire safety classes in an elementary school during my prior O&P placement will serve as the example for this response. I decided from the outset what I wanted my students to gain from the classes. Thus, it had a results-focused approach with the aim of making sure that the students develop skills for fire safety. These techniques included discovering smoke detectors, opening doors with “exit” signs, and other techniques. Hence, my previous experience in planning was results-focused.
Limitations of the Previous Lesson Planning Approach
However, after reading the course material, I have discovered that the plan could have been more effective. I determined that the students’ understanding of the material should have differed. I have utilized tests with open-ended questions, such as “What would you do if your clothes caught on fire?” A better strategy would have involved preparing an interactive fire exercise and observing the pupils to see what skills they had mastered. This way, the plan would have been more results-focused, as fire safety classes ought to result in practical results, and thus needed practical assessments.
Backward Design as a Framework for Effective Teaching
The results-focused approach is the essential component of the backwards design of lesson planning. Apart from activity-oriented design and coverage-oriented design, it revolves around the end goal of teaching: ensuring the students’ understanding of the curriculum and their ability to use it in the future. Hence, the need for a results-focused approach is the primary outcome of the first three weeks of this course.
Thus, the need for more results-driven lesson planning is evident. While the writer’s previous experience in lesson planning was oriented toward results, the assessments required a more practical approach than those results. As clearly illustrated in the first three weeks of this course, the orientation on results is a key in planning an effective curriculum, giving it a clearly defined goal that it will serve.