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BackwardUnit Design?
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Lesson Planning 1

• Open teachers edition.
• Teach lesson.
• Check off QCCs covered.

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Lesson Planning 2

• Go to Media Center.
• Check out latest issue of The Mailbox magazine.
• Select activity.
• Teach/do activity.
• Check off QCCs covered.

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Planning backwards

• What do I want my students to know and be able to
  do?
• How will I know if my students know it and/or can
  do it?
• What will need to be done to help my students
  learn the required knowledge?
• What will I do when I have a student who doesnt
  know it or cant do it?

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Why design backwards?

• Clear expectations
• Targets of performance
• Focus on evidence of learning
• Student achievement relative to the standards

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Considerations

• Time of year
• Prior knowledge/previous exposure
• Other issues

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Step 1. What do I want my students to know and
be able to do?

• Standards and elements
• Unpack the standard
• Identify big ideas
• Enduring Understandings/Essential Questions
• Prioritize EUs and EQs
• Knowledge and Skills

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Unpacking a Standard

• Identify big ideas
• Significant words and phrases
• Transfer to other contexts
• Serve as organizers for planning instruction
• Are conceptual abstract

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Unpacking a Standard

• Enduring Understandings
• Statements
• Declarations of what we want students to
  understand
• Students will understand that _________ .

• Essential Questions
• Open ended
• How questions
• Revisitable

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Unpacking a Standard

• EUs and EQs
• Broad focus
• No right answer
• Designed to provoke and sustain student inquiry,
  while focusing learning and final performances
• Raise other important questions

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Unpacking a Standard

• Prioritize EUs and EQs
• Judgment call
• Which aspects we need to teach first
• Reflect on previously mentioned considerations

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Unpacking a Standard

• Knowledge and Skills
• What you want students to know, be able to do and
  understand by the end of this unit
• Topical specific to the unit
• Overarching can be used across units

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Step 2. How will I know if my students know it
and/or can do it?

• Evidence of learning and understanding
• Descriptive feedback about student performance
• Match assessments with objectives
• Variety of assessments
• Informal checks for understanding
• Observations and dialogues
• Tests and quizzes
• Academic prompts
• Performance tasks
• Student self-assessments

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Step 3. What will need to be done to help my
students learn the required knowledge?

• Instruction
• Informed by assessments
• Identify resources
• Plan unit and sequence of lessons

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Step 4. What will I do when I have a student
who doesnt know it or cant do it?

• Differentiation
• Reteach
• Remediate