7-A-2 New Metrics: Assessment-Driven Lesson Design

Backwards Design - Wiggins & McTighe

New assessments, ones that go beyond the familiar standard tests we grew up with, can do a lot, it is thought, to improving the quality of teaching and learning. For those familiar with the Backwards Design concept of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, also the creators of the educational philosophy Understanding by Design (UbD), we actually need to begin with assessment design, and know exactly what and how we will assess student learning, and then design the lesson itself to fit the assessment . . . . instead of the other way around. (See www.grantwiggins.org for more information.)

Wiggins and McTighe maintain that we design lessons in a similar way in most American classrooms. Typically, we come up with curriculum goals, find appropriate content, present the content, and give a test consisting of some multiple choice, short answer, matching, true/false questions, and maybe an essay question or two. Maybe we will have students do a project, and assess that, too. In other words, our process is that we first find content, teach it, and then we test whether students comprehend the content taught. Although this seems intuitively correct, the opposite way may actually increase learning and make it more meaningful. In the backwards design model, content is determined by the knowledge and learning goals identified and how those will be assessed; those goals are determined by essential questions that are to be explored and answered through the lessons.

If we are to design more meaningful, relevant and rigorous lessons, I agree we must focus first on assessment, and work “backwards.” Then we work to facilitate students in finding, and then making meaning of content, through project-based, or problem-based, learning, and without standing in front of the classroom delivering content. Project-based learning, problem-solving, and the strengthening of the 21st century literacy skill set requires students locate content, instead of teachers giving it to them. Student engagement will be completely necessary in this paradigm! They can’t pretend to be listening to you, they can’t sleep behind their textbook – they will have to be actively involved in their learning.

Something else that interests me about the assessment of 21st century literacy skills is how to evaluate higher order thinking skills. These assessments, specifically rubrics, do not sound quick and easy to create or use! I can imagine myself spending hours pondering exactly whether or not a student has shown sufficient evidence of: analyzing, evaluating, synthesizing, and so on. Another possibly related issue is any new assessment vocabulary we need to employ as professionals so that we can think and communicate better with each other about it. “Backwards design” would be one example. I studied curriculum mapping; it had an extensive vocabulary to learn in order to talk about it. I would assume assessment has many important vocabulary words we need to know and use, too, and I am looking forward to finding out what those are.