Chapter 3

Abstract

This chapter dealt with standards, content, and implementing the planning of the backwars design. This chapter discussed that standards are either to vague or too strict to teach to. The chapter also suggests that backward planning hurdles to of the major obstacles that exist in teaching, which are planning too many "fluff" activities, and trying to cover too much material too fast at higher levels. The "BIG idea" was also dicussed in this chapter. Basically we as educators need to pull out the ideas that are really important and focus on those. We need to set goals on what our students need to know by the end of the unit, then figure out how we want to assess their learning, and then come up with the lesson plans.


Reflection

This chapter was great because it focused on not teaching everything under the sun and really allowed the people in my group the confidence that in using this model they can avoid teaching too much material. Audra felt that she was able to connect with the "sins" that were mentioned in the chapter, and felt like this could help her avoid re-creating some bad teaching experiences she has had to sit through in the past. This is a very useful chapter in regards to planning and focusing on the learnign of our students.