1. BACKWARD MAPPING: Beginning with the end in mind
New Scheme Teachers Conference
September 14, 2011
Rooty Hills RSL
If the ladder is against the wrong wall, every step we take gets us to the wrong place faster STEPHEN R.COVEY – The seven

2. Outcomes
Learn about the research base that underpin the Backward Mapping model.
Build skills and knowledge around effective assessment principles.
Develop quality rubrics to assist with Consistent Teacher Judgement in your school
Use the NSW Model of pedagogy – QT framework as a tool to enhance assessment and, teaching and learning

3. What is it?
A framework used to improve curriculum design in order to develop and deepen students’ understanding.
The logic of a ‘backward design’ approach to programming suggests a planning sequence for curriculum with three stages—Identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, and plan learning experiences and instruction.

4. Jay McTighe & Grant Wiggins “Understanding by Design”
Where did it come from?
Jay McTighe & Grant Wiggins
“Understanding by Design”
The “Twin Sins” of curriculum design:
aimless activity
superficial coverage

5. Does this look familiar?

6. Stephen R Covey, The seven habits of highly effective people
In the words of Covey
“To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”
Stephen R Covey, The seven habits of highly effective people

7. Backward mapping framework
Identify desired results Unpack the content and focus on the big ideas
Determine acceptable evidence Analyse and design multiple sources of evidence aligned with Stage 1
Plan learning experiences and instruction
Plan the learning experiences that align to Stages 1 and 2
Assessment Evidence
Learning
Activities
Understandings Essential Questions s t a g e 2 3
Standard(s): 1
Performance T
ask(s):
Other Evidence:
STAGE 1
STAGE 2
STAGE 3

8. Backward mapping framework
Adolescents share common struggles in growing up.
Writers use a variety of stylistic techniques to persuade readers.
Novelists can provide insight about human experience.
What’s wrong with Holden? Students
assume the role of a staff member at
the psychiatric hospital and write a
letter to Holden’s parents explaining his
behaviour.
Wiggins & McTighe
Assessment Evidence
Learning
Activities
Understandings Essential Questions s t a g e 2 3
Standard(s): 1
Performance T
ask(s):
Other Evidence:
STAGE 1
Identify desired results
STAGE 2
Determine acceptable evidence
The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger
Holden Caulfield is himself the narrator of the story. He is however, somewhat unreliable as it is implied in the book that he is in a mental institution at the time of telling this story. That's why readers cannot wholly believe what he is saying. To start with Holden Caulfield character analysis, he is a typical teenager who is very unlike the heroes that we see in other novels. He is presented as somebody who is discontented with his life and does not shy away from expressing his displeasure about everybody and everything in life. He is stubborn and refuses to compromise and cooperate in any situation.
STAGE 3
Plan learning experiences and instruction

9. Why the backward mapping framework?
Without building courses ‘backward’ from key tasks, big ideas and performance standards, there are no clear priorities.
Wiggins & McTighe ‘05
By thinking through the assessment upfront, we ensure greater alignment of our goals, and therefore teaching is focused on the desired results.

10. Link to key DET planning documents

11. Links to key DET planning documents
Curriculum planning and programming, assessing and reporting to parents K-12 Policy
Curriculum Planning and Programming
Teaching programs will incorporate assessment as an integral component.
Teaching programs will indicate the outcomes being addressed, the teaching activities planned and the intended assessment strategies.

12. Links to key DET planning documents
Curriculum planning and programming, assessing and reporting to parents K-12 Policy
Assessing
Schools plan assessment so that:
students can demonstrate achievement of outcomes for the relevant stage of learning;
valid and reliable assessment strategies are used.

13. Links to key DET planning documents
Curriculum planning and programming, assessing and reporting to parents K-12 Policy
Assessing
Teachers plan assessment strategies when
developing teaching programs.
Teachers use a variety of appropriate
assessments for judging student achievement.

14. Assessment for Learning is
Assessment that enhances learning recognises that learners use their current understanding to discover, develop and incorporate new knowledge, understanding and skills.
Assessment for learning helps teachers and students to know if that current understanding is a suitable basis for future learning.

15. Principals of Assessment for Learning
emphasises the interactions between learning and manageable assessment strategies that promote learning
clearly expresses for the student and teacher the goals of the learning activity
reflects a view of learning in which assessment helps students learn more effectively, rather than just achieve a better mark
Assessment for learning encourages self-assessment and peer assessment. Students can develop and use a range of strategies to actively monitor and evaluate their own learning and the learning strategies they use.

16. Principals of Assessment for Learning
4. Provides ways for students to use feedback from assessment
5. Helps students take responsibility for their own learning
6. Is inclusive of all learners.

17. Designing effective learning and assessment
When designing assessment activities, teachers should consider whether the activity:
has explicitly stated purposes that address the outcomes
is integral to the teaching and learning program
shows a clear relationship between the outcomes and content being assessed
allows students to demonstrate the extent of their knowledge, understanding and skills
Designing Effective Learning and Assessment
Designing effective learning experiences requires the selection of activities that develop students’ knowledge, understanding and skills and that allow evidence of learning to be gathered. Methods of gathering evidence could include informal teacher observation, questioning, peer evaluation and self-evaluation, as well as more structured assessment activities. Assessment should be an integral part of each unit of work and should support student learning.

18. Designing effective learning and assessment (cont.)
focuses on what was taught in class and what students were informed would be assessed
provides opportunities to gather information about what further teaching and learning is required for students to succeed
provides valid and reliable evidence of student learning and is fair.

19. Accessing Deep Knowledge
Knowledge is shallow or superficial in a task when it does not require students to address significant concepts or key ideas of a topic or subject, or when concepts or ideas are fragmented and disconnected from a central focus.
Assessing Deep Knowledge
Knowledge is deep when it concerns the central ideas or concepts of a topic or subject and when the knowledge is judged to be crucial to the topic or subject. Deep knowledge is evident ion a task when students are required to provide information, reasoning or arguments that address the centrality or complexity of a key concept or idea, or to articulate relatively complex relationships with other central concepts.
Knowledge is shallow or superficial in a task when it does not require students to address significant concepts or key ideas of a topic or subject, or when concepts or ideas are fragmented and disconnected from a central focus.
The coding scale below can be used when reviewing your ideas for assessment tasks.
The task does not require students to address significant concepts of ideas.
The task requires students to address some key concepts and ideas but only at a superficial level.
The task requires students to address a significant idea, but on general they are not required to sustain a focus on key concepts and ideas.
The task requires sustained focus on key concepts or ideas but also directs some attention to superficial or unrelated ideas.
The task requires sustained focus on key ideas and concepts.

20. Students as the experts…
Allowing students opportunities to play an ‘expert’ role and engage in authentic tasks for different audiences using a range of appropriate technologies, will assist in maximising engagement, relevance and deep understanding.

21. Quality Assessment Tasks:
connect naturally with what has been taught
address a range of outcomes within the one task
are time efficient and manageable
allow all students to make a start
engage the learner
can be successfully undertaken using a range of methods
provide an opportunity for students to transfer knowledge from a known context to a less familiar one
help teachers to decide what specific help students may require in the relevant content areas
promote higher order thinking

22. Quality Assessment Tasks
provide a measure of choice or “openness”
encourage students to disclose their own
understanding of what they’ve learned
allow student to show connections between
concepts they have learned
are themselves worthwhile for students’ learning
provide a range of student responses

23. Modelling the process Developing the marking criteria (rubric)
brainstorm what the expectation of a high
standard might look like
use KLA syllabus language for descriptors
use the Common Grade Scale to differentiate
between levels
Aligning Grades
Elaborate on Common Grade Scale for each stage
and KLA to develop context
Analyse work samples and read grade commentaries
to develop understanding of standards

24. Planning to Reporting
For planning, programming & delivery think Syllabus and Outcomes
For assessment, recording and reporting think Foundation Statements or Course Performance Descriptors
Integrated assessment; not fragmented assessing and reporting of each individual outcome
Common Grade Descriptors provide a common language

25. Assessment
The major purpose of assessment is to support learning and to inform teaching.
Narrative in action to make a point
23 Heart Surgeons agreed to observe each other in the operating room and share their know-how, insights and approaches.
In the following two years, the death rate of their patients fell by 25%.
“Merely by emphasising teamwork and communication, instead of functioning like solitary craftsmen, all the doctors brought about major changes in their individual and institutional practices.”
Coalition of Essential Schools (Kathleen Cushman, November 1996 )