Course Design: A Backwards Process

"Begin with the end in mind" is such an oft-quoted phrase (and 1/7th of a highly effective person) that it can be easy to discount how valuable of a though process it truly is. In course design, beginning with the end in mind is essential. For learners, that means starting with the goals for the course and working backwards to develop the outcomes, and finally the measures and activities of learning. The process being backwards has aptly been named...wait for it...Backwards Design. In instructional design, backwards design is largely associated with Wiggins & McTighe and their seminal work: Understanding by Design, which articulates the concept of backwards design.

To give a brief overview, backwards design as a development process involves starting with the desired results (learning outcomes), determining what is acceptable evidence that a student has learned those outcomes (assessments), and then planning the learning experiences that will help students learn and be able to demonstrate their learning (learning activities) (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998).

Keep this sentence in mind as you develop a course: "I want students to learn X (learning outcome), and I will know they have learned X if they can do Y (my assessment); so what is the best way to ensure they can do Y (my learning activities)?"

This process of course design, developing outcomes and aligning assessments and learning activities to those outcomes, is at the heart of quality course design, so we want to review it again to ensure we are on the same page.

Can you play baseball?

a boy playing baseball If I am going to teach a child to play baseball, I would not start with a history of the game. Although the history is an interesting and valid topic, it is not relevant to my goals. What exactly does the child need to know, and what skills do they need to develop in order to play baseball? Without really thinking about it, I organize my coaching and teaching with the outcomes in mind: catching, throwing and batting skills; knowledge of the rules and what you need to do in certain situations. From there I think of ways for students to demonstrate their ability and ask them to practice those steps to see how they are doing and give them feedback on their performance.

While planning specifically for what you want students to be able to do after a course may seem obvious, it is not often the way that we as educators do it. Many instructors lay out a course based on a list of topics or chapters of a textbook. Building a course this way can lead you to course activities that do not get students to the real desired outcomes and can lead you to miss important outcomes entirely. What skills and knowledge are needed to play baseball well are readily apparent - in an online course, these outcomes are not always so obvious.

Alignment in your Course

Outcomes

Before getting down to more specific outcomes, some suggest you should first consider the "big ideas" of your course. Smith (2008) call this "teaching for the long term." What enduring knowledge or skills do you hope will persist with your students? Those big ideas need to be pervasive in your course and connecting students back to the big ideas will help guide them through the course.

From these big ideas, come your specific, measurable learning outcomes. Your outcomes may come from accrediting agency requirements that specify learning outcomes for a program or they may come from organizational standards in place, or you may need to write them.

San Francisco State University has a valuable breakdown of the difference between goals, learning objectives, and learning outcomes.

You may want to refer to Bloom's Taxonomy to determine at what level of thinking your outcomes are. This can also help as you think about your assessments and learning activities and even discussion prompts. University of Central Florida also has an Objective Builder that can help create measurable learning outcomes.

Assessments

Once you have your outcomes, determine what evidence is acceptable to demonstrate that your outcomes have been met. Looking at each learning outcome, how will you know that students have the desired knowledge or skills? What is acceptable evidence of this? Develop those assessments being sure to include a wide range of types of assessments that include as much authentic assessment as possible.

Learning Activities

Develop the learning activities needed to provide the necessary support for students to achieve learning. What activities will equip students with the knowledge and skills required to successfully demonstrate their understanding and skills? What resources, readings, activities, coaching, interactions will provide the support needed? Think also about the learning path in terms of scaffolding activities and including supplemental resources for students to get feedback on their progress as they learn.

Putting it all together

When we put together our learning outcomes, assessments and learning activities, we will see the interconnection of these elements, with learning outcomes driving the development of the others and activities supporting the assessments that will help students demonstrate those outcomes.

Diagram showing the connection between outcomes, activities and assessments

Key Takeaways

Make sure the three elements (outcomes, assessments & learning activities) are:

student-focused rather than instructor-focused
focused on the learning resulting from an activity rather than on the activity itself
focused on skills and abilities central to the discipline and based on professional standards of excellence
general enough to capture important learning but clear and specific enough to be measurable
focused on aspects of learning that will develop and endure but that can be assessed in some form now

A Focus on Assessment

You have communicated the learning goals to your students. They understand the goals set forth and how these goals align with the overall course outcomes. Let's turn our attention to how you plan to assess the learning outcomes.

Why are we focusing on assessment? How will you know if students have learned the content or skill that is our desired result? Determine the evidence (based on the desired results) that will help you determine whether or not acceptable levels of learning have taken place.

How do you assess whether or not learning has occurred? Understanding does not magically appear at the end of an activity or project; rather, it develops over time as a result of ongoing exploration, reflection, and further questioning by the learner. The assessment of understanding should be a collection of evidence that is gathered over time. In an online course or training, “Assessment” might look like the following:

Informal Checks for Understanding (e.g., questions, observations, informal dialogues) used to provide evidence of learning.
Standardized Assessments utilizing multiple-choice questions or other quiz-type functions.
Discussion Prompts (open-ended questions that challenge the learners to think critically about the concept being explored; not a recitation of facts) can help assess learners.
Performance Tasks and/or Projects (e.g., authentic tasks that require application of knowledge and skills to an independent situation) will provide evidence of learning.

Assessment Types

Formative assessment is generally considered low-stakes and is useful for allowing the students to test their knowledge and identify strengths and weaknesses during the learning process. This allows the instructor to identify areas mastered by the students versus those that might need more focus or attention. Building formative assessments into your course is a great way to improve the learning process for your students. An example might be allowing students to submit a rough draft of a paper for peer or instructor review before submitting the final copy. Feedback is an integral component of this type of assessment.

Summative assessment is higher stakes and generally carries a greater point value. This type of assessment usually comes at the end of the learning process. An example of summative assessment would be the submission of a final paper.
*Remember to include opportunities for self-practice and peer review to prepare students for higher-stakes assessment.

Authentic Assessment

The goal of authentic assessment is to move learners beyond a surface level understanding of the material, it's more than "pass the test", it encourages higher order thinking to construct knowledge and solve real-world problems.

The Center for Authentic Intellectual Work has developed three criteria for identifying authentic assessment:

Does the work require construction of knowledge from the student?
Is this knowledge guided by disciplined inquiry?
Does it contain "value beyond school" in the form of real-world application.

In his book, What the Best College Teachers Do, Bain (2004) lays out four questions teachers should ask themselves about learning and evaluation:

Is the material worth learning?
Are my students learning what the course is supposedly teaching?
Am I helping and encouraging the students to learn (or do they learn despite me?)
Have I harmed my students (perhaps fostering short-term learning with intimidation tactics, discouraging rather than stimulating additional interest in the field, fostering strategic or bulimic rather than deep learning, neglecting the needs of a diverse student population, or failing to evaluate students' learning accurately)? (p. 164)

Bain's four questions address a broader scope than student assessment alone but are still valuable to consider when designing evaluation for your course. Do the assessments you created help answer the above questions about the learning that has taken place?

References:

Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Formative vs Summative Assessment - Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation - Carnegie Mellon University. (n.d.). Retrieved September 17, 2015, from https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html

Teaching Principles - Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation - Carnegie Mellon University. (n.d.). Retrieved September 17, 2015, from
https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/principles/teaching.html

Smith, R. (2008). Conquering the content: A step-by-step guide to online course design. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.