Backwards Is Better

Mutemath is one of my favorite bands. These guys are quirky showmen, but they have a ton of heart behind their music. The videos they have released for some of their songs illustrate their odd sense of humor. I think this video for their song "Typical" (released back in 2007) might be the best example I can provide. It's worth the four minutes to watch:

Now, I happen to love their sound, and the downright strange nature of this band's backwards video. It might not be your taste, exactly, but take a minute to think about the sheer WORK involved in creating it...

• Imagine learning to lip-synch the whole song backwards. That took some time and dedication! (More than that, think about the drummer learning to drum the whole song backwards! Yikes!)
• There was an immense amount of coordination involved. Every piece had to be arranged and ready, since the thing was basically filmed as one shot. (Okay, maybe two...when Paul, the lead singer, bangs into the camera in an extreme close-up at 2:33...)
• The design of the video is pretty hilarious, but I'm also impressed with the timing of the whole thing. Every bit of it was orchestrated really well. Think of the paint scene, for instance. They had to get it right, because the set (and wardrobe) would have been pretty seriously screwed up for the rest of the day. Or the part with smashing the keytar (keyboard-guitar.) Or the bit with the silly string. Even the post-it notes. (If you haven't watched the video yet, I bet you want to now!)

The final product? A pretty amazing piece of filmmaking and music.

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I'm thinking a lot about this because I'm teaching a curriculum development course this summer, and one of the books I assigned the class to read is Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe. It's become a classic of sorts for curriculum designers and teachers alike--admonishing curriculum developers to think like designers, and to plan their curricula to ensure that students understand the concepts to be learned.

Early in the book, Wiggins and McTighe introduce the idea of designing units "backwards." To understand why it is "backwards," you might first need to understand how teachers traditionally design their unit plans.

Traditionally, teachers:

1. Set unit goals and develop objectives that will help them determine what students have learned.
2. Prepare lessons and teach them.
3. Assess what students have learned, in light of their goals and objectives.

That might sound very reasonable to you--and if you are a teacher, that may very well be what you do as you prepare units for your students. Wiggins and McTighe would encourage us to tweak this plan a bit, and instead work "backwards."

When planning "backwards," teachers:

1. Set unit goals and develop objectives that will help them determine what students have learned.
2. Develop assessments to determine how students will show they have met these goals and objectives.
3. Prepare learning activities that will ensure that students will be able to meet the goals and objectives they have set.

So, the "backwards" part is that we are designing the assessment tasks first...but it's more than just that. It's also a focus on learning, a focus on ensuring that students understand these concepts.

Do students learn from traditionally designed units? Certainly. But the intentionality of the Understanding by Design framework is compelling: here we are trying to be MUCH more deliberate about ensuring that students learn the most important concepts, rather than hoping that they will catch things along the way.

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Just like Mutemath, who took the time and deliberation to craft their video "backwards," I'm convinced that teachers who think "backwards" about their curriculum are going to be more sure of the outcomes for their students.

Imagine if the band hadn't practiced (and practiced, and practiced) their reversed lip-synching and playing. The illusion would have been broken (just as surely as the smashed keytar.)

Imagine if the band hand't coordinated and timed their performance. It still might have been humorous and entertaining, but not with the same impact as the carefully orchestrated show.

Wiggins and McTighe call the traditional approach to planning: "Teach, test, and hope for the best." (p.3) I think that is a helpful, if disparaging term. Teachers who don't make deliberate plans for ensuring students' success will have no way of telling what students will truly come away learning.

On the other hand, teachers who think "backwards" about their planning--developing clear goals and objectives for student learning, carefully crafting assessments vehicles to measure students' progress, designing learning activities created to ensure understanding--might actually be "forward-thinking" in the finest sense.