Ch. 3: Curriculum and Assessment to Improve Teaching and Learning

Through this chapter Jackson and Davis look at the lesson plans and curriculum with the end in mind. This process is called the backwards design. Through my experience in practicum, the backwards design worked to see the whole picture, the assessments, the objectives and the lessons. With the backwards design, we must base the objectives on the standards, what are students need to know at the end of the lesson. I feel that through this design the students are more apt to learn more because of the freedoms through the design. As long as formative and summative assessment takes place during the lesson we can see progress in the students’ growth. Therefore, none of the students have to do the same task for a lesson to be learned and growth to subside. The backwards design is an excellent way to set up a classroom curriculum because ALL students can meet or exceed high standards. We need not to “dumb” down the curriculum and its lessons, but, reveal connections, reality and interests for all. Through the backwards design, we must follow the standards that the NEGP sets forth for us to reach every individual student and bring out the best in each and every one of them. The standards are (1) concerned with the essential ideas (having understandings and questions you want your students to know by the end of the lesson), (2) useful and clear, (3) rigorous, accurate and sound, (4) brief, (5) feasible and taken together, (6) assessable, (7) developmental, (8) selected and modified or supplemented by consensus, and (9) adaptable and flexible. With these standards and the end in mind anything is possible. Therefore, I believe the backwards design is the best way to set up any lesson with any content.