How to Get Started Backward Unit Planning -Template Included

For teachers, planning instruction is one of our most challenging, time-consuming tasks.  When I initially started teaching, the minutes I spent with students during class felt like a break.  The real work began after school with whatever planning was required.  I want to share a method for planning units I wish I’d learned much earlier.  Next time you’re ready to start a new topic or theme in class, try backward unit planning.

Next time you plan a unit, try backward planning.

What is a unit plan and why is it important?

Teachers typically divide courses into units.  Units cover the major topics, themes, skills, or essential questions.  For example, a Social Studies teacher may divide their course into units by topic: the Roman Empire, medieval Europe, the Renaissance, and so on.  An English teacher might teach a year-long thematic unit on persuasive writing that connects to each novel the class reads. 

Your unit plan is the roadmap for the interrelated sequence of lessons that support and guide students toward the major learning goals of the course.

With backward unit planning, much like driving, you identify the desired destination before you begin.

Why is unit planning important?

Simply put, a unit plan gives your teaching a direction or a purpose.

When you jump in the car and start driving, you likely already know where you’re going.  Every turn you make is strategic, advancing you closer to the goal.  With the help of a phone and a few road signs, you monitor your progress toward the final destination.

Conversely, if you drove off without a predetermined destination, who knows where you’d end up?  (Aimless drives on a Sunday afternoon are wonderful, but maybe not the best approach to instructional planning.)

The same is true when you begin an instructional unit.  Before you dive in and start teaching, reflect on what you hope students will gain from the unit.  The “destination” might be content knowledge or skills. 

Then, consider how you’ll track progress during the unit.  These “road signs” might be quizzes, assignments, class discussions, or a project.  The final step is to plan how you’ll get your students to the desired destination. 

Because you identified your learning goals first, backward unit planning simplifies and guides your daily lesson design.  

Backward Unit Planning in 3 Stages

Traditionally, teachers would plan units “frontward”.  With “frontward” planning, lessons were created first.  Then, the teacher designed assessments to match what they taught.  

The downside to forward planning is that it can feel a bit like a collage.  In theory, the different isolated pieces of the collage come together to create something cohesive. That isn’t always the case.  If an assignment doesn’t fit with a larger goal, students complain about being assigned “busy work” — and rightly so.  Isolated lessons lack coherence and purpose (“Why are we doing this?”)  without connection to a meaningful end goal.

In 2005, a book called Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe presented a framework for designing courses and content units called “Backward Design.”  (Understanding by Design is commonly referred to as “UbD”.)  Backward unit planning has become the standard for unit planning in education.

Here’s how it works.

Backward Unit Planning: Stage 1

Start by identifying the “destination” of the unit.  What goals do you want your students to achieve by the time they complete the instructional unit?  The template below contains sections for goals related to standards, content knowledge, skills, and essential questions.

Wiggins and McTighe argued that backward design correctly shifts the focus from what is being taught to what is being learned.

Backward Unit Planning: Stage 2

Once you identify the desired results, determine the assessments you’ll use to track student progress.  Consider the following — from Wiggins and McTighe.

1. How will you know if students achieve the desired results?

2. What will you accept as evidence of student learning? (You will likely find that you think of more options about what is acceptable evidence.  This is because your focus is on the desired results as opposed to a specific type of assessment)

Backward Unit Planning: Stage 3

Last, think about how you’ll teach the unit.  What learning activities are best suited to help students reach the desired results?  Identify options for differentiation and assessment.

Backward planning a unit in this way–starting with the desired results, then considering how students will demonstrate their learning–helps to create daily lesson plans that build on and work in tandem with one another.  It is a powerful way to be more deliberate and strategic in your lesson plans because the final goal guides you. 

Brad has taught history at the middle and high school levels for 19 years, almost exclusively in American public schools.  He has a master’s in educational technology and is passionate about elevating the status of professional educators.