Backwards is the Only Way to Go

I just finished my unit plan, so looking back on the process and synthesizing the experience, I took a backwards design approach with a Kiyna-like twist. I don’t feel that I can give an honest opinion as to how it affected my curriculum design pattern, because I don’t have any experience to compare it to (except my undergrad work, but that was a while ago), but I feel that the steps I took were effective. I started with my unit plan with my standards. I reviewed my scope and sequence and the plans that I had made, but the more I thought and pondered the more stuck I became. On closer inspection, I discovered that my original essential questions for the unit were not what I really wanted for my students, so I changed them and aligned them to the core standards and my GRASPS assignment. I had a basic idea of what I wanted to do for the GRASPS, but I didn’t know what the steps were to get there. I threw ideas back and forth for days on end, but I had hit a mental road block and could not form a flow of lessons for a unit plan!

This is where the backwards design became essential. The only way I pushed through the road block was to take my essential questions, standards, and GRASPS assignment and work it backwards. I knew that I wanted to include technology in every aspect possible and this was able to drive me to flesh out each lesson. The standards became my … standard. I came up with lessons until I’d covered all the standards sufficiently, and then based my objectives and instructional ideas from the standards I’d chosen for each lesson.

Having a focus on technology in my lesson plans gave me direction in both the assessments and instructional strategies. I stretched myself a little further for each lesson by thinking, is there a way I could incorporate more technology into this lesson? Where can I add in a video? When would be a good time for them to engage in a simulator? These questions shaped my cover sheet and overall my entire unit.

Overall, I found that when it came down to the wire, the only way to align my unit plan with what I wanted (not to mention what the rubric wanted) I had to use backwards design. If not, then I would have had random lessons with no cohesion, but because I based my design primarily on my standards, there is a common cord that strings throughout all seven lessons.