Teacherscribe's Teaching Thought #21

Teaching Thought #21

In prepping for my UND Teaching and Learning 250 class a few years ago, I came across this interesting read, Ten Things Teachers Should Unlearn – I revisit it before every school year.

Sixth thing teachers should unlearn:  Teachers should plan activities and then assessments

This actually took me awhile to figure out.  But our work with Nichole Vagle perfectly illustrates this point.  This is simple teaching to the test in the best possible way.  That means deciding on the front end what you want students to learn.  Then develop the tests or assessments.  Then make sure all your activities connect to the tests and assessments.  At UND we call this backward design.  And it’s how I exclusively design my units now.  And it actually saves me a ton of headaches.