A standard definition provided by Oxford English Dictionary states that Design as a verb is –To have purposes and intentions; to plan and execute - Well, despite of this short description, most of you must agree that designing is a complex task.
First of all, if we do not know our student’s needs and types of learning, it is very hard start planning and/or design curricula.(That is a real problem when you are a new teacher or when you don´t have a partner) Overcoming this problem , the First Stage of Backward Design is having clear our purposes and priorities (-Identify desired results-) , that is to say, review curriculum expectations (Nationals or privates), making sure what our learners are able to do , what content deserves to be taught, among others.
The Second Stage is how we prove that every unit we want to teach is going to be attained and reached by the students, that means determining acceptable evidence of the learning process.
And finally the Third and the most substantial Stage for me is planning learning experiences and instructions. At this point, we must take into account several considerations, such as processes, procedures and strategies, but mainly if our activities have real purposes or are merely done for engage students (activity-based instead results-based). We must be careful because engagement is necessary but not sufficient; students have to go beyond that, they have to work for real understanding. Another issue to consider at this stage is that most of our colleges , including me sometimes, tend to “cover” the activities the course books have instead of picking up only the most suitable for our students or the most significant for them. That happens, because most of the time we do not have enough time to do think about it or because our school community demands it. In summary Backward Design deals with the coherence among desired results, developing students’ skills, and finally teaching and learning experiences to reach a better understanding.
I agree with you on the fact that designing curricula is a complex task because several criteria must be considered, such as learners neeeds. Moreover, teachers do not always find the time to develop and assess their units with a professional and feasible critical view.
ReplyDeleteI think planning learning experiencies is one of the most important stages of this sort of design as you said. Equally important it is to be skillful enough to get a clear understanding from our learners despite the time we need to cover.
ReplyDeleteI agree on the fact that we really need to know our students before doing anything. That´s why it´s so hard planning when you do not know their needs, preferences, learning styles. etc.
ReplyDeletethanks for your comments colleges!!!
ReplyDeleteSoemething that caught my attention is your claim that engagin our student is not enough. Sometimes we make a lot of effort trying to find things that are interesting for or students, but the results are not the expected... Defenitely the key word is UNDERSTANDING.
ReplyDeleteI really don't think students need to understand to learn. I think language can be learned and acquired at the same time. Moreover, there are students who learn by understanding and students who learn by using, experiencing. It also depends on student's age.I think engaging and motivating activities are as important as understanding, and sometimes it's easier to plan activity-oriented classes than backward design, which requires a lot of effort and time.
ReplyDeleteI certainly believe that understanding is one of the most important elements to be achieved in our classes along with experience and usage. Understanding is indeed what we most want from our students to get from us.
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