Backward design

It is a funny thing that the last chapter to be commented is Chapter 1 called Backward Design”, does it mean we were going backwards through the readings? We have finally come to the last reading from a book that has certainly given us much to think about and to view our daily work and mission in a different way.

This chapter somehow summarizes the main ideas developed in the previous postings. The key issue, once again is focused on our goals, and from there we should start our planning. And as a main goal is of course, having our students to “understand” the contents and through them, develop critical thinking to have active and critical citizens of the society of the future.

However, a change in the view is not enough. When we center our lessons in learning rather than in teaching, we are taking one step forward, and a complete shift in the design would certainly bring such improvement in the quality of education in our system. On the other hand, we teachers seem to be alone in this crusade for better opportunities for our students. Every time interesting article about how to improve education, we feel delighted with the idea of a change and we comment and encourage our colleagues to follow us in this idea. But it is hard to start when all the conditions to carry it out are not given. Think of the poor schools in this country, with crowded classroom where teachers are not even provided with a decent radio or students have to struggle with the cold in winter.

I trust that the more we read and learn about education and learning, the closer we will be to change things. We’ve just taken the first step where our mission is to build a world where all students will have the same opportunities to get a better future for their lives.

Criteria and Validity

I would like to focus my discussion on the following idea that caught my attention; the kind of criteria used will undoubtedly affect the quality of the feedback we, as teachers, are going to give our students. So far we have been discussing about the different elements involved in Understanding by design. However, through the chapters we have analysed, we have come to the conclusion that there is a mismatch between the theory we read and discuss and try to apply in our practices and what we see or experience in our everyday life.
The kind of criteria used appears as another important element in the design, not only because it help in the assessing process, but also, as the author points out, it will somehow affect the learning of the students. The kind of feedback we give them is closely connected to the criteria used. In other words, learning can take a great advantage of the type of feedback given to the students.
But I have a question for you my friends; what if we continuously assess our students and give them no feedback? Is there any purpose on assessing or are we speaking of just testing? How do we expect our students to improve if we fail to tell them what their weaknesses and their strengths are ON TIME? This becomes a more serious issue when we see that at high levels of education (let's say post-graduate courses) this idea is not put into practice. I think is time to ask and demand coherence from the system, especially for those who are supposed to be preparing the future leaders in education.

Thinking like an Assessor

What evidence can show that students have achieved the desired results?
The chapter starts with this and other interesting questions that challenges our minds to find the answers to the matter. In fact, the author points out that assessment is the evidence implied by the outcome sought and not a mean for generating grades.
As agents of change we should start asking about these issues among our colleagues in order to implement a backward design of planning. The expected outcomes become the core of our planning.
However, it takes a great deal of time and agreement among colleagues to establish this evidence for each level. There must be a consensus and also coherence between the kind of activities done in class, the kind of practice carried out inside the classroom, and the way all this process is going to be assessed. This aspect becomes particularly difficult to be done since teachers have different points of view and different beliefs that one way or another are going to determine their decision-making.
There is also a need to prepare teachers in this process, since we have not been trained enough on how to develop critical thinking, or how to effectively develop the big ideas and ask those essential questions. Universities do not give the necessary tools to be promoters of all these changes. The fact of reading chapters and article about teaching for understanding is just the first step, but we lack the practice on how to do it in everyday classroom situations, it is just something we, teachers are not used to.
On the other hand, the design and implementation of appealing projects is not enough to catch our students’ attention, as the author says, they should not be empty tasks with no real context. Now, the implementation requires a real commitment of all the members of the community involved, not only teachers, but also head of departments and the competent authorities as well as parents, who, most of the time are more interested in grades that real learning.

Gaining Clarity on our Goals

This chapter tries to establish the guidelines to set out goals, in other words, what are the points to be considered and how they will be developed. The essential Questions that will highlight the big ideas that are central to the design of a course.

So far we have discussed the distinction between Knowledge and Understanding, and the need to develop certain skills in our students that will enable them to grasp the core of a matter. However, once again, a number of questions and doubts arise when we discuss the different aspects when designing a model.

Among those aspects mentioned in the chapter, one that is interesting to analyze is the idea of “a prioritizing framework”. Every year we face, especially during the second term, the urgency of covering all the contents or “units of a textbook” due to different reasons (school demands, external evaluations, parents demands, etc). Then the question arises; how can we make choices and frame priorities? It is not clear if such choice-making is in the hands of teachers or in the hands of other participants of the process. One may wonder, however whether teachers at school are prepared to do so, and to develop all the wonderful ideas expressed in this book. On the other hand, time seems always to be against any purpose of making things different and start a change in our practices. In most schools, the time devoted to department meeting is so short, that it is mainly devoted to domestic issues such as the events of the week, the coming evaluations, or any other urgent matter that replaces the important ones.

It is absolutely frustrating to read chapters and articles that bring so much refreshing knowledge and ideas about how to improve learning, and to feel unable to carry them out because there is not a clear policy or idea of the importance of the role of the teacher. Governments still look at teachers as mere “deliverers of contents”, not as professionals able to implement the changes our system urgently needs, only when that view is changed, education will go one step forward.

“Only a person who has questions can have understanding”.

Chapter five starts with this quotation. And after reading it, one may reckon what is the purpose of all this.
The first idea that we should bear in mind is that the aim of our teaching practices should lead to “understanding” and not just knowing contents of facts. But to get understanding we must ask what is called the “essential questions”, those that stimulate the thought and the imagination, leading to inquiry, and as the author quotes “spark more questions”.

But what would happen in contexts where this kind o practice is not encouraged? We would be restricting our practices to just delivery of meaningless contents, and so, easily forgettable. However, the worst consequence from my point of view is that we would be conditioning our students to be passive receivers of established truth; even more, we would be forming citizens unable to criticize or ask questions about the current matters or about what “seems to be right”.

As we can see, on our shoulders lies the responsibility to form people who are creative and critical of the circumstances, and so, be able to propose and encourage the necessary changes to improve our society. But are we really prepared to carry out this task? Are we willing to change the structure of our lessons so as to encourage the development of essential questions? And are we prepared to have critical thinkers in our classrooms who might eventually question us?

Teaching for Knowledge or Understanding?

Are our practices and methods in the classroom aiming to knowledge or understanding? That is the question we are likely to ask ourselves after reading Wiggin’s chapter “Understanding Understanding”.
To answer this question we must bear in mind the distinction the author makes between what knowledge and what understanding are. Through different examples the author tries to make the reader realize on the difference between these two concepts. On the one hand “Knowledge” is seen as a first stage, since it mainly refers to the memorization of facts, the “know by heart”. This stage is important since it is the basis of building up further knowledge or understanding, but even more essential is the process of “understanding”, which is defined as a “mental construct, an abstraction made by the human mind to make sense of many distinct pieces of knowledge”.
The goal of understanding according to the author is to take those pieces of information to produce or find something of significance, i.e. to use what is stored in our memory to go beyond the facts (meaningful inferences). Understanding is also seen as “transferability”, i.e. the ability to transfer what we have learned to new and sometimes confusing settings.
Having in mind the difference in the concepts and the implications of each, we, as a teachers, may wonder about what is going on in our classes. I am sure all of us want to make our students go beyond, have them make inferences and make relations with the information they are given, in other words, make them really think and be successful learners; however not all the time our methods, practices, and activities aim this purpose, and many times they result in misunderstanding or a partial grasp of knowledge. The crucial matter here is (as the author points out) there must be a coherence between our purposes, in this case develop in our students understanding, and the methods used.

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