Inclusive Course Design
18 Backward Design 101
An inclusive, effective course is a well-designed course.
No matter the delivery format (online, blended, or face to face), all effective courses start with the same thing: a well-designed course plan.
As we’ve seen, the course design process begins by knowing our learners and identifying their needs. It also involves a strong online presence from the teacher. You may be wondering how to go about designing this sort of supported, inclusive, student-centered learning experience. Rest assured, it’s possible!
We are going to start simply with a process called Backward Design. As you will see below, Backward Design is about beginning with the end in mind — which is actually more logical than it may sound.
You will identify what you want students to learn (desired learning outcomes or objectives) and ensure that they are clearly stated in measurable terms. In other OTDP offerings, we will address using the Backward Design process to create assessments, teaching and learning activities, and content resources — all the while supporting our desired learning outcomes.
Let’s get started.
Aligned Course Design
Think of your course design as the backbone of your course. From that strong backbone, you will expand and add other elements to motivate, engage, and interact with students online. Backward Design will help you create your strong backbone.
There are a couple of prominent Backward Design models:
- Understanding by Design (Links to an external site.), created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe;
- Significant Learning (Links to an external site.), created by Dee Fink.
We draw upon both of these models in this course.
For an introduction, see the following video where a University of Wisconsin faculty member describes how they are using the Backward Design process to improve courses.
Transcript on Educational Innovation
As the video demonstrated, there are three questions that guide the design process:
- What should students know and be able to do at the end of the course? These are your learning outcomes.
- What is acceptable evidence that students have achieved these learning outcomes? These are your formative and summative assessments.
- What learning experiences, instruction, and resources will help students be able to provide evidence that they have met the learning outcomes? These are your learning activities and content.
In a successful Backward Design, the content, activities, and assessments are all in support of solid learning outcomes; this is called alignment (Wiggins and McTighe) or integration (Fink).
No matter what you call it, the result is a consistent learning pathway for students. consistency for students.
Up next
Next, we focus on creating student-centered learning outcomes/objectives. Solid learning outcomes will be instrumental in creating assessments and activities as well as helping you choose learning materials and resources for your course.