BACKWARD MAPPING:
Beginning with the end in mind
New Scheme Teachers Conference
September 14, 2011
Rooty Hills RSL
Outcomes
• Learn about the research base that underpin the
Backward Mapping model.
• Build skills and knowledge around effective
assessment principles.
• Develop quality rubrics to assist with Consistent
Teacher Judgement in your school
• Use the NSW Model of pedagogy – QT framework as a
tool to enhance assessment and, teaching and
learning
What is it?
A framework used to improve
curriculum design in order to
develop and deepen students’
understanding.
Where did it come from?
Jay McTighe & Grant Wiggins
“Understanding by Design”
The “Twin Sins” of curriculum design:
aimless activity
superficial coverage
Doesthis
this look
look familiar?
Does
familiar?
In the words of Covey
“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 R Covey, The seven habits of highly effective people
Backward mapping framework
1. Identify desired results
Unpack the content and focus on
the big ideas
2. Determine acceptable
evidence
Analyse and design multiple sources
of evidence aligned with Stage 1
3. Plan learning experiences
and instruction
Plan the learning experiences that
align to Stages 1 and 2
Standard(s):
Understandings
s
t
a
g
e
1
Essential Questions
STAGE 1
Assessment Evidence
Performance Task(s):
s
t
a
g
e
Other Evidence:
STAGE 2
2
LearningActivities
s
t
a
g
e
3
STAGE 3
Backward mapping framework
•
•
•
Adolescents share common struggles in
growing up.
Writers use a variety of stylistic
techniques to persuade readers.
Novelists can provide insight about
human experience.
What’s wrong with Holden? Students
assume the role of a staff member at
the psychiatric hospital and write a
letter to Holden’s parents explaining his
behaviour.
Standard(s):
Understandings
s
t
a
g
e
1
Essential Questions
STAGE 1
Identify desired results
Assessment Evidence
Performance Task(s):
s
t
a
g
e
2
Other Evidence:
STAGE 2
Determine acceptable
evidence
LearningActivities
Wiggins & McTighe
s
t
a
g
e
3
STAGE 3
Plan learning experiences
and instruction
Why the backward mapping framework?
Without building courses ‘backward’ from key
tasks, big ideas and performance standards,
there are no clear priorities.
Wiggins & McTighe ‘05
By thinking through the assessment upfront,
we ensure greater alignment of our goals,
and therefore teaching is focused on the
desired results.
Link to key DET planning documents
Links to key DET planning documents
Curriculum planning and programming,
assessing and reporting to parents K-12 Policy
Curriculum Planning and Programming
• Teaching programs will incorporate assessment as
an integral component.
• Teaching programs will indicate the outcomes
being addressed, the teaching activities planned
and the intended assessment strategies.
Links to key DET planning documents
Curriculum planning and programming,
assessing and reporting to parents K-12 Policy
Assessing
Schools plan assessment so that:
• students can demonstrate achievement of
outcomes for the relevant stage of learning;
• valid and reliable assessment strategies are used.
Links to key DET planning documents
Curriculum planning and programming,
assessing and reporting to parents K-12 Policy
Assessing
• Teachers plan assessment strategies when
developing teaching programs.
• Teachers use a variety of appropriate
assessments for judging student achievement.
Assessment for Learning is
•
Assessment that enhances learning recognises
that learners use their current understanding to
discover, develop and incorporate new knowledge,
understanding and skills.
•
Assessment for learning helps teachers and
students to know if that current understanding is
a suitable basis for future learning.
Principals of Assessment for Learning
1. emphasises the interactions between learning and
manageable assessment strategies that promote
learning
2. clearly expresses for the student and teacher the
goals of the learning activity
3. reflects a view of learning in which assessment
helps students learn more effectively, rather than
just achieve a better mark
Principals of Assessment for Learning
4. Provides ways for students to use
feedback from assessment
5. Helps students take responsibility
for their own learning
6. Is inclusive of all learners.
Designing effective learning
and assessment
When designing assessment activities, teachers
should consider whether the activity:
• has explicitly stated purposes that address the
outcomes
• is integral to the teaching and learning program
• shows a clear relationship between the outcomes
and content being assessed
• allows students to demonstrate the extent of their
knowledge, understanding and skills
Designing effective learning
and assessment (cont.)
• focuses on what was taught in class and what
students were informed would be assessed
• provides opportunities to gather information
about what further teaching and learning is required
for students to succeed
• provides valid and reliable evidence of student
learning and is fair.
Accessing Deep Knowledge
Knowledge is shallow or superficial in
a task when it does not require
students to address significant
concepts or key ideas of a topic or
subject, or when concepts or ideas are
fragmented and disconnected from a
central focus.
Students as the experts…
Allowing students opportunities to play
an ‘expert’ role and engage in authentic
tasks for different audiences using a
range of appropriate technologies, will
assist in maximising engagement,
relevance and deep understanding.
Quality Assessment Tasks:
connect naturally with what has been taught
• address a range of outcomes within the one task
• are time efficient and manageable
• allow all students to make a start
• engage the learner
• can be successfully undertaken using a range of methods
• provide an opportunity for students to transfer knowledge from
a known context to a less familiar one
• help teachers to decide what specific help students may require
in the relevant content areas
• promote higher order thinking
•
Quality Assessment Tasks
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
provide a measure of choice or “openness”
encourage students to disclose their own
understanding of what they’ve learned
allow student to show connections between
concepts they have learned
are themselves worthwhile for students’ learning
provide a range of student responses
Modelling the process
• Developing the marking criteria (rubric)
 brainstorm what the expectation of a high
standard might look like
 use KLA syllabus language for descriptors
 use the Common Grade Scale to differentiate
between levels
Aligning Grades
 Elaborate on Common Grade Scale for each stage
and KLA to develop context
 Analyse work samples and read grade commentaries
to develop understanding of standards
Planning to Reporting
• For planning, programming & delivery think Syllabus
and Outcomes
• For assessment, recording and reporting think
Foundation Statements or Course Performance
Descriptors
• Integrated assessment; not fragmented assessing and
reporting of each individual outcome
• Common Grade Descriptors provide a common
language
Assessment
 The major purpose of assessment is to support learning and
to inform teaching.
Narrative in action to make a point
 23 Heart Surgeons agreed to observe each other in the
operating room and share their know-how, insights and
approaches.
 In the following two years, the death rate of their patients
fell by 25%.
 “Merely by emphasising teamwork and communication,
instead of functioning like solitary craftsmen, all the doctors
brought about major changes in their individual and
institutional practices.”
• Coalition of Essential Schools
(Kathleen Cushman, November 1996
•)