Backward design was first created by Wiggins and McTighe in 1998 as a way to create courses. It was created because of the tendency of instructors to “forward design” their courses – meaning they consider how to teach the content (learning activities), develop assessments around their learning activities, then attempt to draw connections to the learning goals of the course. Backward design asks the instructors to consider the learning goals first and then create an assessment – and then base the instruction and learning activities on the goals and assessment. Backward design consists of three steps:
