Backward Design

In the second step of the Backward Design method, you will determine how you will measure student success or achievement--often called "assessment" in education vernacular. Ask yourself, "How will I know if a student has learned the thing I wanted them to learn?".

In classroom situations, assessment of student learning is performed to provide grades for students. Grades are an easily-understood and well-established form of recognizing student achievement and allowing them to move on to more difficult coursework and then ultimately graduate.

However, assessment of student learning is also a way that we assess ourselves as educators. In the case of our FabLab workshops, we are not assigning grades to students for successful completion; yet, we still want to assess their work so that we know that we are doing a good job of teaching. Since we went through the effort of articulating exactly what we hope for them to learn, we should follow through and measure whether or not they learned it. This will help us to become better educators and correct problems in our teaching practices. Assessment will also allow us to reflect on our learning outcomes and revise them if needed before we repeat the workshop. Assessment provides us a measurement for constant improvement.

Assessment can be performed in many different ways, for example, written or verbal tests, scoring rubrics, self-evaluation, and demonstration of performance. The learning outcome that you are assessing will largely dictate its own method of assessment. Here are some examples.

• Students will be able to draw geometrically perfect circles by freehand.
  • While this act is virtually impossible, you could look at a student's freehand-drawn circle and visually assess how geometrically perfect it is, or you could employ some tool to determine if it is geometrically perfect. The student could be rated on a scale by how close her circle is to geometrically perfect, or simply pass/fail based on if the circle is perfect or not.
• Students will name and describe the visual effects of five Adobe Photoshop filters.
  • This could easily be assessed by written or verbal test. You could also employ a scoring rubric to rate how well they describe the filters; scoring could span the range from not-adequately described, adequately described, and masterfully described.
• Students will demonstrate their understanding of 3D model "manifoldness" by correcting a non-manifold 3D model and then printing it.
  • In this case, the assessment requires no further action on behalf of the student. The proof of mastery lies within the pudding of their successful or failed 3D prints, so to speak. If the print does not fail, then the student has demonstrated their understanding.
• Students will demonstrate their ability to refill or replace 3D printer filament.
  • This activity can be assessed by demonstration of successful performance.