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The Course Design Institute is based, in part, in terms of the framework we use on the work
of Grant Wiggins. And Wiggins is well known for his idea of Backwards Design. Backwards
Design starts with a consideration of the learning outcomes that we want our students
to achieve. And Wiggins describes this as both what we want students to know, and what
they should be able to do at the end of the course, or more importantly and the end of
their degree or their time at our institution. And the skills and knowledge that we envision
they should take forward in their future careers beyond their time at University. So we start
with thinking about these learning outcomes and then the notion of backwards design comes
into play because the next step is to actually think about assessment and how you would assess
for those learning outcomes that are desirable. And so we want to be sure that we're true
to those learning outcomes; that we don't on the one hand, state that our learning outcomes
are "X" and assess for "Y." We want to align our assessments with those outcomes because
we know assessment is a really really important phase in the student learning process. When
students are involved in assessment, they're really engaged, you really have their attention,
and so, as well as the possibility of assessing what they've learned, we can also use assessment
as a learning tool. So, instead of just talking about assessment of learning, we can also
talk about assessment for learning. So once we've determined what those outcomes are,
what we want the learning assessments to look like; whether they're formative assessments
or summative assessments the next task is to cast backwards from those assessments,
a shadow that would cover the activities that will lead to success in those assessments.
We think about scaffolding, we think about how to build a framework for success for students
where we're building up those skills towards those final assessment pieces.