By Nate Feldman
In the textbook Backwards Planning: Enduring Understanding, the author focuses on how teachers in classrooms can build true knowledge and deep understanding of subjects to their students.
The term "Backwards Planning" refers to the idea that teachers must have ultimate goals for their students and build quality lesson plans and assessments based on those goals. For example, as an ESL teacher, if my goal is to get students to recognize the difference between the present perfect and simple past verb-tenses, I must create a series of activities and assessments which give students an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of the material and show to me they truly grasp it.
Before each lesson, we must outline what the ultimate goal for the student is. The goal isn't just to have students parrot what I say. They ideally will have a deep understanding of the topic at hand. After that, I will create an assessment of some sort to see if the student actually learned and comprehended the material from the lesson. Then, I will create the activities that help them to achieve this goal.
Obviously, building an education system on such concepts is ideal. We have too many students in the world who learned how to pass classes by repeating what was said in books or classes and never really understanding what they were learning. It will lead to a more thoughtful world. Of course, the challenge always is the ideal vs. the real. Very often, administrators care more about completing material in a set time rather than when everyone gets it. And if some students don't get it, there is the attitude that it is their fault. And sometimes teachers are put under pressure to complete material in a set time, meaning if the students don't have "enduring understanding," they are forced to move on anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment