Understanding By Design! Learning Task & Assignment # 3

My understanding of Backward Design is a method of designing a curriculum by setting goals before choosing instructional methods and forms of assessments. The Design model is a framework that encourages teachers to plan lessons based on what the intended outcomes are. This involves getting the blend of the content which enhances thinking and maintaining long-term goals. Grant Wiggins explains that goals are to be transferred by the student.

In an exercise with teachers, he asked them to write the mission statement they want their students to learn and understand. He gives this example as a concrete mission statement: I want students to leave able to transfer their understanding on their own to concretely address current and future situations." 

• Design a school government  
• Design a government for Iraq 
•   Organize their workplace
•   Support candidates who understand our core principles  

  The Design framework writing a mission statement and or lesson plan,  should be well thought out goal>assessment>instruction. Also, textbooks are not the course, it is a resource. Explaining what a student should know at the beginning of a unit or lesson is the "obligation of the teacher, the design of the lesson is not the problem of the student." Inquiry and critical thinking is a missing component in our curriculum today, Students who excel on state exams get accepted to good and prestige colleges. However, they are unable to articulate critical thinking in their writing or able to explain an author's point of view because the course goals were to receive a passing grade, but not transfer what was learned to real-life situations.