Backwards Course Design Makes Education Goal Oriented

You have a clear understanding of where or what you want to achieve when you begin any task with the required end result in mind. It means that you have an idea of where you are going. which results in understanding where you are not, and thus any steps you take will always be in the right direction. This can be equally true in the field of education where you design your course according to what you want your students to have the knowledge of at the end of the course.

This method of designing courses is called the backwards course design. This enables educators to plan a framework that is focused on a particular goal and makes for effective ways to align all short term actions and plans with the long term goals. Content and performance are then blended so that the students are better engaged. The course goal has to be the mission statement for the course. Designing a backward course requires consideration of the existing knowledge and skills of students, and the learning that they have must fit into the context of the program. Any knowledge that the learners get from the course must be applicable to the gains they take from it to reach the goals set out.

The education imparted during any course planned in this fashion must start with identifying the knowledge and skills that students must have after completing the course. You must identify what you expect the students to know, understand, and be able to apply this knowledge to after they have gone through the course of instruction. These are expectations that they have from the course and must be the goals of any decided course of education. The curriculum must focus on principles, concepts, theories, themes, and points of view.

It is then necessary to decide on the acceptable levels that give evidence that these results have happened through culminating task assessments. Assessments can be in the form of projects, tests, or observations. You can then proceed to the task of designing or learning events that will give the students the knowledge and skills that will allow them to achieve the desired results. You can now consider methods of teaching, the sequence of lessons, and resource materials that can be an aid to learners.

In traditional methods of teaching a list of content that is to be taught is selected. In backwards course design, the educator starts with required end results, makes a plan for assessing the skills and knowledge gathered by the students, and then finally makes plans for the lessons. This method of design is like having a road map of the destination and then planning on how to get there.

All teaching in a course that has been designed backward results in the imparted knowledge always been focused and organized towards achieving certain results, and not just the imparting of knowledge which traditional curriculums will do. The educator is then addressing what students need to learn to reach their end goals and collecting data on assessments of what they have learned.