Here you will get help to plan teaching by using backwards design. Use the guide above to navigate through the five steps. For each step you will find relevant examples, questions for reflection, and links to further reading.
Below is a brief introduction to the principles of good course planning.
Students' learning at the center
Course planning includes careful examination of the what, how and why of teaching, and how to practically organise the course. Course planning also provides an opportunity to ensure that there is a correspondence between what you want students to learn, how the teaching is conducted, and what forms of assessment you use.
To take a holistic approach, you can think about the relationships between learning objectives, forms of assessment, teaching methods, academic content, the people and the frameworks.
Backwards design
To plan a course you can use principles of backwards design. The process starts with specifying what students should learn and how to measure that they have achieved the learning outcomes, before planning the content of the teaching. In this way, you can ensure that the teaching methods and activities support the students to achieve the goals you have set.
Making sure that the teaching, the assessments and the learning outcomes are linked and fit together, is often referred to as "constructive alignment". Constructive alignment gives you a framework to plan and implement your teaching, and the students receive the necessary support to take responsibility for their own learning process.