Why backward design?…It was the first question I asked myself when I started to read this chapter, then my first objective was to discover why the chapter had this name. The answer appeared on page 19, so here it is:
This [backward design] is all quite logical when you come to understand it, but “backward” from the perspective of much habit and tradition in our field. A major change from common practice occurs as designers must begin to think about assessment before deciding what and how they will teach. Rather than creating assessments near the conclusion of a unit of study…
Wow... it is not simple then, to start on the other way around and consider assessment before thinking about the ‘what’ to teach. Because we normally start the process by choosing the units we are going to teach and how we are going to teach them; therefore, assessment is normally the last stage in this process. Probably this is the easiest way, especially if we work with textbooks where everything is already set, and we simply follow a path traced by someone else. But as we have been through this book, it makes sense that we have to do it on the other way around, because then we are forced to clearly set the goals before deciding on the units or topics to work with. So, this chapter proposes us three stages to follow this backward design: 1) identify desired results; 2) determine acceptable evidence; and 3) plan learning experiences and instruction.
Finally, after all the readings we have had this semester, I think I cannot disagree with the idea that we teachers are designers, and therefore an essential act of our profession is the crafting of our curriculum, learning experiences and assessments to meet specified purposes (goals) previously set by ourselves, considering the weaknesses, strengths and needs of our students.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Criteria and Validity
According to Wiggins and Mc Tighe, evaluation of students work is based on the teacher’s judgment guided by criteria. Therefore, it is essential to have a clear idea about what should we look at, because appropriate criteria highlights the most important aspects of the work done by the students. But where shall we look for the appropriate criteria? According to Wiggins criteria derives from the goals set, which should be clearly defined at the beginning of a course. But then everything is extremely intertwined, because if I’m not mistaking criteria is based on specific goals, and evaluation is based on criteria; therefore if goals aren’t well designed, according to the students’ needs and their characteristics, or if the teacher doesn’t give these concepts the importance they have we might assume that things simply won’t work.
Another important aspect discussed in this chapter was validity. According to Wiggins validity has to do with inferences; the way we interpret and understand test results. Therefore, with this information teachers will be able to make decisions in order to improve the learning process. From that point of view, validity is of extreme importance in the teaching learning process, since it gives teachers the tools to analyze his students’ and his own performance.
To sum up, what can I say my dear friends, the more I read this book the more I understand why the educative system doesn’t work in our country. Can you imagine those tired, old fashioned, and disinterested teachers who work in most of our schools trying to make things match in the way it’s proposed in this book? It’s hard to take so many things into account; it takes time and teachers need to have the appropriate knowledge to do it right. So, it seems to me that we are the chosen ones, let’s be brave enough to start making real changes right now.
Another important aspect discussed in this chapter was validity. According to Wiggins validity has to do with inferences; the way we interpret and understand test results. Therefore, with this information teachers will be able to make decisions in order to improve the learning process. From that point of view, validity is of extreme importance in the teaching learning process, since it gives teachers the tools to analyze his students’ and his own performance.
To sum up, what can I say my dear friends, the more I read this book the more I understand why the educative system doesn’t work in our country. Can you imagine those tired, old fashioned, and disinterested teachers who work in most of our schools trying to make things match in the way it’s proposed in this book? It’s hard to take so many things into account; it takes time and teachers need to have the appropriate knowledge to do it right. So, it seems to me that we are the chosen ones, let’s be brave enough to start making real changes right now.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Thinking like an assessor
We teachers normally struggle to really determine what our students truly know or what they are able to do. According to chapter 7 teachers will assess effectively the work of students if they take the position of an assessor more than a teacher. But what’s the main difference between these two concepts? Basically, the difference is that teachers are more interested in generating grades, through the use of appropriate exercises which include right or wrong answers. On the other hand, an assessor is more interested in analyzing evidence of transferability, which is based on the ideas of how to use knowledge and skills effectively in different situations.
I think we have to clearly understand what assessing students means, since in general the most common, easy and natural way of assessing our students is through giving them tests, and we don’t really consider the information gathered during the process, which is of great value and importance. Although, gathering relevant evidence during the process is not that easy since we must recognize that it’s quite complicated for us to keep an eye on every student in the classroom, especially when we have 40 or 42 students working together. I know this is our eternal problem, our unsolved problem, but the more I read the more I realize this is one of the key points to achieve quality and equality in our educational system. But anyway, as we know things won’t change, we have to do and give our best considering all the failures the system may have, and according to this chapter, this time it’s related to the way we assess our students. We should keep always in mind the objectives we’ve set for every single class, which might vary considerably depending on the group. Besides, we need to consider the different kinds of assessment in order to pick up the most appropriate regarding our students characteristics and needs, which is not easy, not at all, but again it sets us a great challenge to develop and improve our teaching skills.
I think we have to clearly understand what assessing students means, since in general the most common, easy and natural way of assessing our students is through giving them tests, and we don’t really consider the information gathered during the process, which is of great value and importance. Although, gathering relevant evidence during the process is not that easy since we must recognize that it’s quite complicated for us to keep an eye on every student in the classroom, especially when we have 40 or 42 students working together. I know this is our eternal problem, our unsolved problem, but the more I read the more I realize this is one of the key points to achieve quality and equality in our educational system. But anyway, as we know things won’t change, we have to do and give our best considering all the failures the system may have, and according to this chapter, this time it’s related to the way we assess our students. We should keep always in mind the objectives we’ve set for every single class, which might vary considerably depending on the group. Besides, we need to consider the different kinds of assessment in order to pick up the most appropriate regarding our students characteristics and needs, which is not easy, not at all, but again it sets us a great challenge to develop and improve our teaching skills.
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Gaining clarity in our goals
According to Wiggins, the design process to plan a unit of study has to be coherent and focused on clear and worthy intellectual priorities – on what we call “big ideas” and “core tasks”. All this means that teachers are in charge of setting explicit or clear priorities; we have to make choices according to the objectives we have set for the course and therefore, according to these objectives, we juggle with multiple responsibilities such as deciding what we are going to include in our units or what we are going to leave aside, or the time we are going to spend in the tasks designed. But, is it that easy for us to make decisions on what to teach? Maybe yes, maybe no, probably some of us have got the freedom to choose a textbook; but anyway, textbooks contain lots of units which should be covered in a year, and developing big ideas - which is our main topic today- demands time, time to reflect, to analyze and compare different ideas or concepts that might appear in the lesson. Then, probably the question is: do we have enough time to do our job as it should be done? Remember that big ideas are at the core of subjects and they need to be uncovered through collaborative and reflective work that results from the use of essential questions; therefore, students need time to make connections between the new information given, the information they’ve already got and their own life –in other words, transferability-.
To round off, it is of great importance to have clarity on what we decide to teach and why, but please consider that it is a huge task, since we don’t have enough time to do it properly. But anyway, ‘ideally’ there should be a clear and straightforward answer for these questions, considering our big goal which is helping our students to truly understand new concepts as well as use their skills wisely, in order to become autonomous and efficient learners.
According to Wiggins, the design process to plan a unit of study has to be coherent and focused on clear and worthy intellectual priorities – on what we call “big ideas” and “core tasks”. All this means that teachers are in charge of setting explicit or clear priorities; we have to make choices according to the objectives we have set for the course and therefore, according to these objectives, we juggle with multiple responsibilities such as deciding what we are going to include in our units or what we are going to leave aside, or the time we are going to spend in the tasks designed. But, is it that easy for us to make decisions on what to teach? Maybe yes, maybe no, probably some of us have got the freedom to choose a textbook; but anyway, textbooks contain lots of units which should be covered in a year, and developing big ideas - which is our main topic today- demands time, time to reflect, to analyze and compare different ideas or concepts that might appear in the lesson. Then, probably the question is: do we have enough time to do our job as it should be done? Remember that big ideas are at the core of subjects and they need to be uncovered through collaborative and reflective work that results from the use of essential questions; therefore, students need time to make connections between the new information given, the information they’ve already got and their own life –in other words, transferability-.
To round off, it is of great importance to have clarity on what we decide to teach and why, but please consider that it is a huge task, since we don’t have enough time to do it properly. But anyway, ‘ideally’ there should be a clear and straightforward answer for these questions, considering our big goal which is helping our students to truly understand new concepts as well as use their skills wisely, in order to become autonomous and efficient learners.
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Essetial questions:
Doorway to understanding.
“It is through the process of actively interrogating the content through ‘provocative’ questions that students deepen their understanding”
I wanted to start with this quote since I think the idea of “interrogating” our students is not that new; in fact, we as teachers tend to ask questions to our students in order to know how much they understand. We need to know whether they follow us or not; nevertheless, there is something that caught my attention and it has to do with the “kind” of questions we ask. Because it’s not any kind of question, it’s “provocative” questions, which makes a big difference I think, since Wiggings refers to them as the kind of questions that make our students react, whose answers are not over there but need to be discovered through discussion and reflection, stepping back into their own experience, reviewing and analyzing carefully what’s in their minds, and which probably would lead them to ask more and more questions.
Therefore, as a result, we have this concept of Essential questions, which as I already said, besides promoting understanding of a content, they also spark connections and promote transfer of ideas from one setting to others, leading to deeper understandings and new questions. I think Wiggings is also appealing to students’ personal commitment with his concept of essential questions, because what he wants to do is to sort of “wake up” students and make them react to the different proposals offered by the teacher, in order to go beyond and search reflection of ideas. Students need to be challenged in order to not get bored in classes and feel that learning is a process where they are active participants and not a pasive audience which only receives what the teacher gives. But what if teachers are not able to provoke this real interest in students? What if the questions arisen in their lessons are not challenging enough? Would students lose interest? Would they really learn?
To sum up, I would like to say that - It’s not only to know the meaning of words in a sentence, but what it really means as a whole structure.- students must be able to interpret and analyze what’s in front of their eyes, and only then we will know that they are developing their critical thinking.
Doorway to understanding.
“It is through the process of actively interrogating the content through ‘provocative’ questions that students deepen their understanding”
I wanted to start with this quote since I think the idea of “interrogating” our students is not that new; in fact, we as teachers tend to ask questions to our students in order to know how much they understand. We need to know whether they follow us or not; nevertheless, there is something that caught my attention and it has to do with the “kind” of questions we ask. Because it’s not any kind of question, it’s “provocative” questions, which makes a big difference I think, since Wiggings refers to them as the kind of questions that make our students react, whose answers are not over there but need to be discovered through discussion and reflection, stepping back into their own experience, reviewing and analyzing carefully what’s in their minds, and which probably would lead them to ask more and more questions.
Therefore, as a result, we have this concept of Essential questions, which as I already said, besides promoting understanding of a content, they also spark connections and promote transfer of ideas from one setting to others, leading to deeper understandings and new questions. I think Wiggings is also appealing to students’ personal commitment with his concept of essential questions, because what he wants to do is to sort of “wake up” students and make them react to the different proposals offered by the teacher, in order to go beyond and search reflection of ideas. Students need to be challenged in order to not get bored in classes and feel that learning is a process where they are active participants and not a pasive audience which only receives what the teacher gives. But what if teachers are not able to provoke this real interest in students? What if the questions arisen in their lessons are not challenging enough? Would students lose interest? Would they really learn?
To sum up, I would like to say that - It’s not only to know the meaning of words in a sentence, but what it really means as a whole structure.- students must be able to interpret and analyze what’s in front of their eyes, and only then we will know that they are developing their critical thinking.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Understanding Understanding
Knowledge or Understanding?
I think that we as teachers of English are always exposed to deal with these concepts of “knowing” and “understanding” in our classrooms, since it’s very common to find students who although might know the meanings of the words that appear in a sentence or in a short paragraph, they are unable to create or give a whole meaning to the text they read. They tend to translate, word by word, but then they realize it is not enough. Therefore, the same students come to the conclusion that knowing words doesn’t really imply understanding, they need to make meaning of the facts. It’s more than words and it is in this process that teachers play an essential role, because we must give them tools to help and guide them in this process of understanding.
Transfer as a key to a good education
According to Bransford, Brown and Cocking, developing the ability to transfer one’s learning is key to a good education, and I think they are absolutely right in their comment, because students tend to think that what is learned in the English lesson has nothing to do with History or Language, or any other subject; and when they realize that there is a slight connection between subjects they feel quite puzzled, since it is not a common practice. We as teachers must recognize that the lack of transferability in our students is not only their fault, but ours too. Because this important process should be guided by teachers, through cross-curricular work for example, which implies permanent communication among teachers, so that what is studied in the English lesson today, might be seen in the History lesson next week, from another point of view probably, but students will notice the correlation and it is going to make sense to them.
Misunderstanding
According to Wiggins and Mc Tighe misunderstanding is not ignorance but the mapping of a working idea in a plausible but incorrect way in a new situation. It’s not that students don’t get the point of the things we are dealing with in the lesson; it’s not that they don’t understand a thing. In fact, students must have some kind of knowledge in order to fail or misunderstand things during the transfer process.
I think that we as teachers of English are always exposed to deal with these concepts of “knowing” and “understanding” in our classrooms, since it’s very common to find students who although might know the meanings of the words that appear in a sentence or in a short paragraph, they are unable to create or give a whole meaning to the text they read. They tend to translate, word by word, but then they realize it is not enough. Therefore, the same students come to the conclusion that knowing words doesn’t really imply understanding, they need to make meaning of the facts. It’s more than words and it is in this process that teachers play an essential role, because we must give them tools to help and guide them in this process of understanding.
Transfer as a key to a good education
According to Bransford, Brown and Cocking, developing the ability to transfer one’s learning is key to a good education, and I think they are absolutely right in their comment, because students tend to think that what is learned in the English lesson has nothing to do with History or Language, or any other subject; and when they realize that there is a slight connection between subjects they feel quite puzzled, since it is not a common practice. We as teachers must recognize that the lack of transferability in our students is not only their fault, but ours too. Because this important process should be guided by teachers, through cross-curricular work for example, which implies permanent communication among teachers, so that what is studied in the English lesson today, might be seen in the History lesson next week, from another point of view probably, but students will notice the correlation and it is going to make sense to them.
Misunderstanding
According to Wiggins and Mc Tighe misunderstanding is not ignorance but the mapping of a working idea in a plausible but incorrect way in a new situation. It’s not that students don’t get the point of the things we are dealing with in the lesson; it’s not that they don’t understand a thing. In fact, students must have some kind of knowledge in order to fail or misunderstand things during the transfer process.
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