Designing Your Course: Part 1

Introduction to Backward Design

Whether you are teaching in a 200-seat auditorium, an art studio, a laboratory practicum, or an online environment, being intentional in how you design your course is the first step to supporting your students' success. Many instructors have found the "Backward Design" model useful for designing their courses. Drawn from Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins' 1998 publication Understanding by Design, this framework addresses content mastery and the intellectual skills students should have when they finish your course. In principle, backward design shifts the responsibility for learning back to students because you make your planning decisions on the basis of outcomes that they must achieve. It also makes it easier for you to select course material because your course goals dictate the content to include. Below are backward design concepts you can use to develop a course that intentionally supports your students’ learning and academic success. These encourage you to think deeply about your teaching goals and to build and utilize assignments and course activities that help you and your students meet your goals throughout the semester. Visit the Center for Transformative Teaching's "Introduction to Backward Design" for a more in-depth tutorial about the backward design process.

Identifying Your Course Goals

Here are a few questions to consider when determining your course goals:

What is your course about?
What is the content area covered?
Does it fit into curricula in other departments?
Is your course certified for the University's ACE program? Which outcomes does it meet that you should prioritize in your course?
Does your course lay the foundation for courses that follow it or build on what students have already learned in other courses? How does it fit into the broader curriculum and students' overall university experience?

Creating Learning Objectives

Once you have decided the broader goals of your course, you need to determine your course learning objectives. Bloom's taxonomy provides a helpful way to understand levels of learning. The table below includes the levels of Bloom's taxonomy along with some of the verbs you may use when writing course objectives for each level.


Remembering	Understanding	Applying	Analyzing	Evaluating	Creating
Copying	Annotating	Acting out	Calculating	Arguing	Blogging
Defining	Tweeting	Articulate	Categorizing	Validating	Building
Finding	Associating	Reenact	Breaking Down	Testing	Animating
Describing	Tagging	Loading	Correlating	Scoring	Adapting
Quoting	Summarizing	Choosing	Deconstructing	Assessing	Collaborating
Listening	Relating	Determining	Linking	Criticizing	Composing
Googling	Categorizing	Displaying	Mashing	Commenting	Directing
Repeating	Paraphrasing	Judging	Mind Mapping	Debating	Devising
Retrieving	Predicting	Executing	Organizing	Defending	Podcasting
Outlining	Comparing	Examining	Appraising	Detecting	Wiki Building
Highlighting	Contrasting	Implementing	Advertising	Experimenting	Writing
Memorizing	Commenting	Sketching	Dividing	Grading	Filming
Networking	Journaling	Experimenting	Deducing	Hypothesizing	Programming
Searching	Interpreting	Hacking	Distinguishing	Measuring	Simulating
Identifying	Grouping	Interviewing	Illustrating	Moderating	Role Playing
Selecting	Inferring	Painting	Questioning	Posting	Solving
Tabulating	Estimating	Preparing	Structuring	Predicting	Mixing
Duplicating	Extending	Playing	Integrating	Rating	Facilitating
Matching	Gathering	Integrating	Attributing	Reflecting	Managing
Bookmarking	Exemplifying	Presenting	Estimating	Reviewing	Negotiating
Bullet-Pointing	Expressing	Charting	Explaining	Editorializing	Leading

This table categorizes various verbs according to the different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, which can be useful for planning educational activities and assessments.

As you think about your course learning objectives, the following questions might guide your goal setting:

What kinds of skills and levels of knowledge can you expect of students who register for your course?
In what ways do you hope students will be "different" when they finish your course?
What should students be able to do with the knowledge and skills gained in the course?
What do students need to know in order to do what you want them to be able to do by the end?
What kinds of tasks should students be able to perform to acquire the knowledge they need to achieve your learning goals?
How will you measure students' level of "difference" when the course is finished? How will you know your students can do what they should be able to do?
How will your course take into account students' diverse cultural backgrounds? What perspectives and attitudes do you want students to take away?
How will your course bridge the current interests and conceptions that shape how students approach the discipline?

The Center for Educational Resources at Johns Hopkins elaborates by saying that learning objectives should have the following SMART attributes.

Specific – objectives that are clearly stated and consistent with the goals of the curriculum
Measurable – data can be collected to measure student learning
Appropriate – for the level of the learner (grad, undergrad, major, non-major)
Realistic – objectives that are doable
Tailored – to the worthy or important stuff

Developing Course Assessments

Once you have developed your course goals and objectives, it's time to develop a plan for assessing student progress toward meeting those objectives. Assessments can take on a variety of forms including:

Papers
Quizzes
Homework assignments
Lab projects
Practice problems
Group projects

You will need to carefully consider what types of evidence you will deem acceptable for demonstrating that students are meeting your course objectives. Think about how your goals and objectives are reflected in your assessments and be sure you can make a clear connection between an assessment and one or more of your goals. Constantly refer back to your objectives and make sure your assessments will produce the evidence that you want.

Additional resources:

Explore practical and effective assessments particularly in large enrollment courses.