Thinking Like an Assessor		Thinking Like an Activity Designer
What would be sufficient and revealing evidence of understanding?		What would be interesting and engaging activities on this topic?
What performance tasks must anchor the unit and focus the instructional work?		What resources and materials are available on this topic?
How will I be able to distinguish between those who really understand and those who don't (though they may seem to do so?)		What will students be doing in and out of class? What assignments will be given?
What criteria will I use to evaluate student work?		How will I give students a mark (and justify it to parents)?
What misunderstandings are likely? How will I check for those misunderstandings?		Did the activities work? Why, or why not?

Adapted from Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Understanding by Design,
Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development (ASCD), 1998. p. 68

Backward Design Model

When developing unit and lesson plans, teachers decide how student performance will be assessed. When developing performance assessments, teachers move between thinking and working in the role of an assessor and thinking and working in the role of an activity developer.

STEP 1 IDENTIFY LEARNER OUTCOMES What are students expected to understand, know and do? TEACHER AS AN ASSESSOR STEP 5 REFLECTION What will you do to decide what the next step in teaching should be? TEACHER AS AN ASSESSOR TEACHER AS ACTIVITY DEVELOPER

STEP 2 DETERMINE ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE (CRITERIA) What would you accept as evidence that students learned? TEACHER AS AN ASSESSOR STEP 3 PLAN LEARNING EXPERIENCES and INSTRUCTION What learning activities will enable students to achieve the learner outcomes? TEACHER AS ACTIVITY DEVELOPER

STEP 4 PLAN ASSESSMENT and EVALUATION STRATEGIES How will students demonstrate what they understand, know and can do? TEACHER AS AN ASSESSOR