School desperately needs a design revolution.  Since Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe published Understanding by Design in 1998, we’ve been on the slow boat to backward design. (Even though the term was coined in 1949 by Ralph Tyler, classroom teachers have only really been thinking about it for two decades). The problem is that most teachers believe they are designing backwards already.  But designing for what teachers think should be taught yields very different outcomes from designing for what we want learners to learn.  So why do schools still build march-through-the-content syllabi when what you design backwards from is as important as the process itself?  

At One Schoolhouse, our teachers do not start their course design process by creating the course syllabus.  The first thing they do is create a course map, where they develop three to five competencies that students will master.  A competency is an aptitude (or collection of skills) that captures our values and is measurable. The next step in course mapping is to determine the skills to be scaffolded and the evidence that will show measurable progress towards mastery. Our teachers also design assessments that result in the creation of authentic artifacts of mastery and determine pathways students may take in each learning cycle.  One of the last things that they do is backfill with the content needed to master the course competencies.  Does the subject-specific content still get learned? Absolutely, but it isn’t the design-driver because amassing knowledge is not a competency in most of our classes.  

Let’s take a moment to address those courses where the lower level Bloom’s skills -- “to know” or “to understand” -- do show up in one of the competencies, and explain that we are secure with the belief that knowledge is absolutely essential at some point in every course.  When committing facts to memory needs to be elevated (in Art History, for example), the teacher uses project-based learning techniques so that the knowledge attainment is a necessary component of the process. When knowing specific content needs to be a measurable outcome (in classes culminating in an AP test, for example), then the skill of standardized testing may show up as a piece of a competency.  

As a supplemental online program, most students are attracted to our courses for the subject-specific knowledge they hope to attain. Our goal is to leverage that curiosity into enduring ways of thinking and doing -- rather than transitory exposure -- so that we can send students off with a lifelong skill.  This is the essence of designing backwards from competencies: turn passion into permanence by designing backwards from that which abides. 

Gretchen Warner, Upper School Director at The Archer School for Girls, shares why she appreciates the backwards design of One Schoolhouse courses. 
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For more information about how Archer partners with One Schoolhouse to expand its core curriculum and inform on-campus innovation, check out Archer's Partner Profile!

Connection, collaboration, creativity, and application were the original pillars that we built from, though as the field (and technology evolved) and as we learned more in the online space, that baseline pedagogy was added to and evolved. 

Our challenge was to understand how to measure progress and growth that supported the pedagogy we had set out. Interestingly, we started with the understanding that these things should be measured… and that’s not always where we come from in the independent school world.  

As we designed backwards from the goals, we had to determine both what we wanted to measure and which tools were best for the job. Student voice was key for us. We wanted to know how students perceived what was being built--not only at the end of the course but also at key moments throughout the academic year.  So, since our start, we’ve surveyed our students five times a year: two weeks into the course, and at the end of each quarter.  Teachers receive this feedback, and they review it with the Assistant Head and our Instructional Designer, in order to make any in-moment course corrections and to plan for future iterations of  the course.

Similarly, faculty are evaluated by themselves and by the Assistant Head of School, in order to make sure that objectives are met. Faculty evaluations, in aggregate, are even shown to the Board, as a marker of course progress and to demonstrate how and why investments are being made in certain areas.

We also continue to improve and adjust our pedagogy, using the latest available research and learnings of our faculty and administrative team.  We keep the pedagogy of the school updated, and adjust our faculty course standards and competencies annually — we continue to move the goalposts so that what was “exemplary implementation” in year one, is “baseline effectiveness” by year three.

We deliberately built from mission and goals, and then measured.  For schools, there might be an opportunity either with reverse design or with building instruments to measure how you are meeting the stated goals and objectives.

For a deeper dive into the topic, check out the below research and resources:
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White-Papers & Blogs:​

• Blog posts on: Course Quality, The Importance of Goal Setting, The Learner Driven Classroom and Personalized Learning, but from the perspective of the learner rather than the teacher. 
• Take a look at our Pedagogy of One Schoolhouse white-paper to learn more about our approach to learner-driven courses. Here, we outline why we approach teaching & learning from this perspective and how we stay true to our roots of being a research-driven organization. ​