Backwards Design

Most states have now compiled curriculum standards for kindergarten through 12th grade public education, and have created tests which look to see whether students have learned these key concepts, facts and/or skills. To meet this challenge many educators and administrators adhere to just going through the list and checking off the content as it is covered. This leads to students getting exposed to a wide range of content, but not being able to work with the material enough to master it. For the amount of material expected to be covered to be learned by students, curriculum needs to be designed in such a way as to group key concepts and eliminate redundancy.

Backwards design is a curriculum approach developed for the purpose of handling current standards. One of the more well known curriculum using backwards design is Understanding by Design, UbD. In creating a curriculum using UbD, the creators approach the curriculum in three stages.

Stage 1 - Desired Results

Determine what it is that you want you students to know at the end of the unit. What standards are to covered? How can these standards be grouped best? What are the key understandings for students to gain? What are the essential questions for students to be able to answer? Determine the priority knowledge and skills for students to gain.

Stage 2 - Assessment Evidence

How will you know whether students have acquired the knowledge and skills you attempt to teach? Decide on performance tasks and other assessment evidence which accurately measures the degree of learning on the specific learning goals targeted. One means of doing this effectively is with project learning. This will be revisited a little later.

Stage 3 - Learning Plans

In traditional teaching the lesson plan always took center stage. Curriculum were often lists of great lesson ideas that didn't particularly work together. With more content to cover than ever before there isn't often time do these great lessons that don't blend well. UbD places lesson planning in the final stage instead of the initial stage (That's why it is called backwards design). By placing lesson planning at the end of the curriculum planning process only the most essential content will be chosen for coverage, thus allowing quality lessons a place in the classroom once again.

In essence backwards design is determining what is most important to be taught, how to know it is taught, then determining how to teach it. It increases efficiency in teaching and as a result frees up time for creative lessons and fostering skills and values in student.


Tomlinson, Caral Ann, & McTighe (2006) Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Virginia.

For more on Understanding by Design go to the ascd website.