Backward Design for College

This week, we were fortunate to offer our eighth Course Design Studio over the past year, so it seemed appropriate to share recent research entitled “A Planning Tool for Incorporating Backward Design, Active Learning, and Authentic Assessment in the College Classroom by Heather Reynolds and Katherine Dowell Kearns from Indiana University. The authors remind us that faculty receive little instruction in course design, and may find it challenging to enact the principles of backward course design into their courses. To address and study this issue, they developed a backward design-inspired planning tool.

The findings include that benefits of implementing the planner included enhanced ability to prioritize content delivery; better time management in and out of the classroom; improved experience of preparation; more engaged students; and more frequent feedback on student comprehension. Finally, from the author’s in-class observations of colleagues using the planning tool, class time was markedly more active for students after implementing the backward design planner.