Backwards design: November 6th 2014

Hello again,

Today I am going to talk to you about something called backward design. Backwards design is a new approach to designing lesson plans and unit plans. The term may appear complex but it simply  means that teachers will create their lessons with an end goal in mind. Teachers will decide what the students need to get out of the lesson, then the teacher will create the day to day lessons needed to get the students to the end goal. Before this idea, it is thought that teachers would plan lessons on a day-to-day basis. Meaning they would not know what they were working towards rather, they would create a lesson with a goal for that particular day.

Personally, it seems obvious to work in the backwards design model. In so many things we do we always work towards a goal in mind. As students we know how to plan ahead and what it takes to stay on top of things or else we would not be in a fourth-year education course. For example, my end goal of my entire university career is to get a job teaching physical education and I would like to travel to different countries and teach. Since I know this is my end goal I have been working towards this every day since I was accepted into my program. I know I need to study for exams, attend class and do my part as a student. Although this is a goal that will take five years to complete I know the importance in it and I am willing to work towards it. Also, on a smaller scale, thinking about end goals in terms of school work, when I go about writing an essay, I decide my end goal first. My essays would not be very strong if I decided at the end of my essay what I was going to argue.

When students become teachers I do not understand why the skill of planning ahead is lost. Backwards design seems to fit with lesson planning better than any approach to lesson planning. Teachers must know what the students are expected to get out of the course and this is done by scanning the curriculum expectations for the students. From there the teacher can create a final project that encompasses all of the expectations the teacher wishes to achieve and finally design day to day lesson plans where the students will explore and learn the material necessary to be successful.

Why don't teachers use backwards design? Well I came up with some reasons and I will also give you my opinion on why the excuses of avoiding backwards design are not valid. 

 Excuse 1: Backwards design takes too much planning.

 Initially, it may seem that backwards design does demand a lot more work from the teacher because the teacher must plan out every aspect of a lesson before they go in to teach it. However, I believe if you were to add up all the time it would take for a teacher to come up with a lesson every day then at the end add the time the teacher needed squeeze in any extra important curriculum expectations that may have been overlooked in a day to day planning style, the times allotted would be similar. On top of time, with backwards design it removes the stress and worry that could come with arriving at the end of a unit and having overlooked important curricular expectations. When I was a gymnastics coach it was part of my job to give a report card to every student in my recreational class. I took the day to day approach and taught the kids what I thought they needed to learn. However, always on the last month of teaching I would check the report cards and realize many skills of the gymnasts needed to pass on their report card I had overlooked. Then this would lead to a big struggle at the end trying to determine if these gymnasts could physically do the skills or I could teach the gymnasts the skills before the report cards were due. If I would have taken the backwards design approach, my gymnasts would have had a better chance of passing their report cards because they would have known from the beginning what skills they needed to work on and how to be successful in my class. So, does backwards design take “way more” planning? Depends who you ask, but the panning will be purposeful and will ensure students receive a fair opportunity to arrive at the end goal.

Excuse 2: It is easier to stick to what we know. 

Some teachers are not open to change. They feel that the way they have been doing things have been working and they don't see a purpose in changing it. Backwards design is a good tool for teachers to have to get organized. They can go about their days with a bit more ease knowing that they have planned their classes in a way that can allow for all students to be exposed to the tools necessary to reach the end goal. Yes, some teachers will need to be educated on how to properly use the backwards design model but my argument is, how do you know what model is better if you never give it a try? Why "fix what aint broke" you say? Well, how do you know it isn’t broken, when I was coaching, backwards design had never even crossed my mind but now that I understand it, I would have to say my methods of lesson planning while coaching were very broken.

Excuse 3 : Backwards design model will make no difference on the students. In the end they learn the same things anyways.

 Yes, this may be true. However the ways a teacher will come to the end goal is drastically different. With daily planning the teacher may seem unorganized and stressed due to the lack of goal they are working on. With backwards design the teacher has a set guideline for what needs to be achieved, this way if unexpected things occur, such as a student missing a lot of class the teacher will be prepared because they can inform the student about what they will be missing and a proactive student may even return to school prepared and almost at the same level as the other students. Also what if there are many disruptions during class time such as  many fire drills occurring during that class time, the teacher can plan ahead by leaving a few extra days for these interruptions so the class can stay on track. An unprepared teacher would get flustered and annoyed when their class was interrupted or a student was taking a lot of time off.

This video also gives very good insight on why backwards design is a step in the right direction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REAaEGdvMq0

October 9th 2014 : Inquiry Based Learning: What is it Good For?

Hello again I am back for another week to talk to you about education. Through my years of being a student in the education program I have come to realize teachers believe a lot needs to change for optimal student success in the school system. Many of my courses have suggested that as an educator I should take action to change the way the classroom is run. They say students should be seen as important as the teacher. Student voices should be heard in decisions, they should help decide how they are evaluated and they should choose in what they learn. Basically, students decide how the class is run. I'm sure to the average student today, this would sound like a dream come true, but even though these ideas have been shoved down my throat for about three years now, I cannot help but to be skeptical. Today I am going to focus on children choosing what they learn in the classroom. 

There are four factors as to why I'm skeptical to this method.
1. How can we ensure students are learning the things they need to be successful in their future?
2. How can we monitor what students know or what they don't know if they are all learning different things?
3. Students searching for answers takes a lot longer than traditional learning so how do students have time to learn enough things?
4. How do we know students are even coming across the right answers?

I am mainly going to focus on number one, but I will also briefly touch on the other points as well.

My idea for this blog hit me when I was reading chapter four in Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom Assessment: Engaging the 21st century learner by Susan Drake, Joanne Reid and Wendy Kolohon. The authors in this book were telling me that student should be learning in an inquiry learning setting. This means students would have control of what they are learning. They suggest schools move away from the mandatory credits required for high school students, rather they would like to enforce only two mandatory programs. One called digital literacy and the other inquiry learning. As you can imagine these programs would be vastly different from the regular math, science, physical education and art that are currently required. They would like to move towards courses that emphasize inquiry where  students explore their own questions and having a student voice, students sharing what they learn with each other in the classroom, online and with the community. Students are expected to show their findings to an audience that is targeted. Students gain community involvement by working with other students from other schools to find solutions. Students are given chances to be leaders by working with younger students. Inquiry learning suggests that play can lead to learning also if their personal interests are being learned about students will pay attention. Finally, students are expected to show what they have learned in the classroom and outside the classroom by networking.

Before we all go crazy thinking that this is going to revolutionize how we learn and is going to be beneficial for future students, I think we need to answer a few questions. First of all, when do we get to learn the real stuff? I mean, when do we learn Pythagorean theorem?When do I learn important dates of our history? When do I learn how to write an essay or how to properly communicate ideas? With inquiry learning we are not forced to learn anything. Rather students get to choose topics that they are interested and then explore them. How are the students going to know how to pay their taxes if they do not know proper math skills? How will doctors know how to fix us if they never have learn anatomy, physiology or even memorize the diseases and illnesses we could have. If students don't wonder the right questions they will never learn how to do some of the things that we are required to learn today. I am in school right now with the idea that if I work very hard I will get to do what I want I like later in life. However, inquiry based learning seems like the opposite; the students get to do what they want as students then are hopeless later in life. 

Yes, inquiry methods of learning seem great for the time being but will students be lost in their future? As a future physical education teacher, I believe that learning through doing can be one of the most beneficial methods of learning for students. Also, I have agreed with many of my education courses that students need the freedom to explore and learn about what they're interested in. on the other hand, I have also come to realize how important the fundamentals, we are forced to learn, really are. This realization came to me my first lecture of my mandatory biomechanics course. I mentioned before in my other blog post I have known from a very young age that I want to be a physical education teacher so, in high school when I was required to take math, history, etc. I would often get frustrated because I would feel it had no purpose to my future. However, who knew that my math skills would need to be re-learned in University. In my class, I am forced to use Pythagorean theorem, re-visit SOH CAH TOA, and use basic algebra skills to solve biomechanical situations. This made me think, if I learned in an inquiry learning space I never would have chosen to learn about these math skills. Therefore, in this class I would have no chance of passing the course. This biomechanics course is making me dig up many skills I have long forgotten but I know this course is going to be extremely beneficial to my knowledge in the future. It will help me analyze student’s movements to help them achieve the best results in my gym class and it is great for preventative measures because with this knowledge I can analyze student movement and know if it is safe or not.

What will kids do in the future? If they do not wonder some of the very important things that I, as a student, learned will they be behind in life? What will happen to them in university? Or will they have the opportunity for self-directed learning in university? The major issue is, what will happen to these students in the real world? Growing up, every student would have learned entirely different things from one another based on their individual wonders. What will happen when they hit the real world? If they have not wondered the right things they will not have the proper skills to be successful in their jobs or even day-to-day activities.

Also, inquiry based learning takes a lot of time. For example, in the textbook it stated students went on a hike up a mountain to see what the conditions were like. This would have taken multiple classes to gather enough information to answer the things that were “wondered”. If students learned this the “old fashion” way, they could have opened a textbook and within minutes the students would have the answers. Yes, I agree this is not as fun but it is definitely a faster way of gaining information. In my experiences in labs, I have learned things rarely go to plan. One time in my zoology lab, needed to determine if a turtle male or female. After two and a half hours of the class, I had no luck understanding where my turtle’s reproductive organs were.  I asked the teaching assistant who told me this animal was missing male and female reproductive organs. In cases like this, students can search and search for an answer but this doesn't mean the correct answer will be available to them and this also wasted a lot of my time by searching for something that wasn't physically present in my circumstance.



I think it is great that students are gaining a voice in the classroom. I feel this movement encourages students to gain a better sense of belonging and a stronger connection to the classroom. However, I believe too much freedom, like students choosing what they are going learn, is something students cannot handle because there is no way they will be prepared for their real life experiences if they get to pick and choose things that they want to learn. If someone can prove inquiry style learning can allow for success in the real world, I will consider it as a possible delivery method of information for my students. Without solid evidence comparing the traditional way of learning and the inquiry way of learning and proof that the inquiry way of learning is better, I simply do not believe it is a step in the right direction.