Lessons · Teaching · backward design: write the check first

Write the check first

Design a lesson from its evidence backwards: write the question you will ask at the end, then the practice that makes it answerable, then the explanation, in that order.

Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.

What it is for

You planned a beautiful hour on erosion and wrote the exit ticket at 8:40 the next morning, and it asked for something the lesson had never quite got to. Nothing was lazy about that. The order you plan in decides whether it can happen at all.

How to think about it

Three lines on the plan, numbered in the order they are written: the check, the practice, the input. Then take out anything that does not point at line one. That is the whole test for whether an activity earns its minutes.

Worked example

1. Check: name 2 ways water moves soil, with an example of each

Written first, in the exact words the learner will see.

2. Practice: sort 8 photographs into moved-by-water and not

Chosen because it makes the check answerable. Nothing else earns the time.

3. Input: 6 min of explanation and one worked example

Written last, and kept as short as the check allows.

Cut: the 9 min video

It was interesting and it pointed at nothing on the check. That is the whole test.

Your turn

A 50 minute lesson gives 6 minutes to input and 9 minutes to the check. Write the line that gives the minutes left for practice.

50 - 6 - 9 =  min

The trap

Writing the check last, from whatever you happened to cover. A check written after the lesson can only confirm the lesson; it can never catch the lesson missing its own point.

Practise backward design: write the check first on HoneA question on it now, a real problem where there is one, and it is remembered for review. Free, no email needed.