Backward Designing Your Library Instruction Sessions

April 25, 2019
Online (via the Zoom platform)
1:00pm-2:00pm EST
Facilitated by Mike Goudzwaard

Educators, including librarians, often approach designing learning experiences in a “forward design” manner, meaning they consider content first, then learning activities, and then develop assessments around their learning activities. The result is that connections to the learning goals of the course, workshop, or lesson are often missing.

In contrast, the backward design (Wiggins and McTighe) approach has educators consider the learning goals of the learning experience first. These learning goals embody the knowledge and skills instructors want students/participants to have learned when they complete the learning experience. Once the learning goals have been established, the second stage involves consideration of assessment. The backward design framework suggests that instructors should consider these overarching learning goals and how students will be assessed prior to consideration of how to teach the content.

This workshop will explain the benefits of incorporating backward design for any learning experience, including courses, lessons, and workshops. Then it will elaborate on the three stages that backward design encompasses. Finally, participants will begin applying backwards design to a learning experience they have taught or might teach in the future.

By the end of this workshop participants will be able to:

• Identify the three phases of backwards design.
• Consider how backwards design might be useful to designing any learning experience.
• Apply the first phase to create goals for a learning experience.