I remember several years ago being in the education program and learning about something called "backward design." It really didn't mean anything to me. Not that the instructor didn't teach it well; my brain just didn't grasp the whole concept. We went on our Junior Pairs adventure ready to teach a unit in Social Studies, whatever the teacher wanted us to teach. Jana and I were assigned a 3rd grade class at a school in Pleasant Grove. The teacher handed us a packet about the American Flag and told us to go through each page and have the students fill out the answers as we taught it. What did this have to do with backward design? We didn't think it was similar at all to what we had been taught in our Backward Design class. This didn't help the fact that I was already confused. Some how we slogged our way through it and made some lesson plans out of what we would LIKE to have done. Now that I have actually taught for several years (this is my 9th), I have a much better idea of what I want the kids to come out with in the end, so creating this scope and sequence in science wasn't too much of a difficulty. Probably the hardest part for me was finding cool tech things the kids could do for assessments that I wasn't too intimidated by. As I think about the specific unit I am going to write, Moon Phases, I know what I want my outcome to be, so now working backward only makes sense! After all:
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