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“To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”
Stephen Covey |
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Drago-Severson (2011), stated it is important to allow opportunities for adults to learn and grow by participation (p. 10) as well as through self-directed activities. Through active engagement, modeling, reflection, application, feedback and assessment, this module has offered you an opportunity to learn about and apply Understanding by Design, or backwards planning. This module has provided you with tools that can be useful in your unit planning or PLC collaborative unit planning and has offered you solutions to the problem of planning units and lessons that are appropriate and yield desired results.
Now that you have completed this module, rethink your initial thoughts about starting with the end in mind. Reflect on the following:
- Why is it important to think about assessment before deciding how or what you will teach?
- Do you focus on textbooks, favored lessons, dinosaur lessons and inputs or are you focused on the output?
- Is your teaching content-focused or result-focused?
- Do you ask yourself the “why” and “so what” questions before you plan your lessons?
- Can you envision what you want your students to know, or be able to do, by the last day of school?
- Do you always start each task with a clear vision of your desired direction?
- Can your students transfer their new knowledge to other situations?
- Can you use the information from this module to make real life applications? How?
