Another first: Backwards Design

I recently designed, utilized and wrapped up my first Backwards Design Unit on the 2nd grade standard of Balance and Motion. This video, led by the founder of Backwards Design, Grant Wiggins, provides some necessary background information if you're unfamiliar with the idea.

Planning with the standards at the forefront of the unit
While I've always made great effort to keep the standards as the center of each lesson or unit, this time around I was very intentional about dissecting this standard to completely understand each benchmark and the overall goal of this standard. I was able to utilize the different benchmarks to formulate the essential questions and each day's learning goals. My students became very familiar with the overall standard but also the individual understandings that the big idea was composed of.
Utilizing the Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions
Once I had determined what the enduring understandings and essential questions would be I typed them into each lesson's Smart Board slide. The enduring understandings and 3 essential questions remained the same throughout the entire unit so each day I would begin the lesson by addressing and asking the essential questions. By doing this the kids were able to see how they got closer to being able to understand and answer those questions in more depth as we uncovered by knowledge about motion.
Creating assessments prior to teaching the lesson
By creating the assessments before teaching the lessons I knew what our end goal was. I was more intentional with each day's learning goal and could adjust my teaching if I noticed we were veering too far off that path. I also feel that my student's overall understanding was deeper because of how intentional and focused we were. I included some sort of formative assessment after each day's lesson (journaling, Socrative or Infuse Learning quizzes, exit tickets, etc.) and used those assessments to guide the next day's lesson.
Teaching Balance and Motion using BD vs. prior years
This is the 4th year I've taught this unit and I can confidently say my students have a better understanding of the overall concept of motion more than they ever have. I think this can be attributed to my extra effort to dig deeper, ask more questions, discuss our findings and strive to reach a certain goal or answer specific essential questions. In the past I've simply used the provided FOSS kit and vocabulary terms. Usually I just post the vocabulary, we discuss them, and if my students are able to use them when experimenting with their various science tools I thought that was enough. However, the FOSS kit doesn't provide any type of "big idea," essential question or assessment so I always found myself still wondering if they truly "got it" at the end of the unit. When it came time to grade I only had my observations and the conversations we had had in whole group. Utilizing BD I ended this unit with a very clear picture of which students truly grasped the concept.