Backward Design, developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, is a strategic framework for designing educational curricula, courses, and assessments — it begins with the end in mind, identifying desired learning outcomes first, then working backward to develop instructional methods and materials that achieve them.
Origins and Evolution
Introduced in the late 1990s through Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. A response to inefficiencies in traditional teaching where educators focused on delivering content rather than ensuring students achieved specific learning outcomes.
Related models: Understanding by Design (UbD), Constructivist Learning Theory, Bloom’s Taxonomy, Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation.
The Three-Stage Process
Identify Desired Results
Define clear and measurable learning objectives that serve as the foundation for the entire instructional plan. This stage is about determining what learners should understand, know, and be able to do.
- Core content and concepts: Fundamental ideas and knowledge that form the basis of the subject matter
- Skills and competencies: Critical skills and abilities learners should develop
- Enduring understandings: Overarching principles with long-term value beyond the course or classroom
Determine Acceptable Evidence
Design assessments that effectively measure student learning and proficiency — before any instructional activities are planned. This ensures assessment drives design, not the other way around.
- Alignment with learning goals: Assessments directly measure the objectives defined in Stage One
- Performance tasks: Authentic demonstrations of competency in realistic contexts
- Formative checkpoints: Quizzes, reflections, and informal checks along the way
- Summative assessments: Final projects, portfolios, and peer assessments
Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction
Design instructional strategies and activities that are fully aligned with the goals and evidence defined in the previous two stages. Only now do you plan the content delivery.
- Enabling knowledge and skills: Facts, concepts, principles, and skills learners need to reach the goals
- Engaging learning activities: Interactive lectures, collaborative projects, case studies, simulations, workshops, e-learning modules, flipped classroom sessions
- Instructional resources: Materials and tools that directly support the learning goals
The most common mistake is skipping Stage 2 and designing activities before assessments. If you don't know how you'll measure success, you can't design learning that leads there.
Backward Design in LXD: Examples
The three-stage process applies across a wide range of learning contexts. Here are common applications:
Creating Learning Pathways
Planning a sequence of professional development modules with a clear end goal. Each module builds on the previous, progressively developing the knowledge and skills defined in Stage One.
Competency-Based Programs
Starting with the competencies learners must demonstrate, then designing targeted learning experiences and assessments. All instructional activities are tied directly to specific, measurable skills.
Professional Workshops
Identifying the desired skills or knowledge areas first, then working backward to create workshop activities and assessments — rather than filling time with content.
Online Learning Modules
Defining what learners need to know and be able to do by the end of the module, then creating engaging and interactive content aligned with those outcomes.
Collaborative Projects
Defining desired team-based outcomes first, then designing activities that promote teamwork and critical thinking. Each team member understands their role and how their contributions align with the project goals.
When writing your Stage One objectives, use Bloom's Taxonomy action verbs to ensure they're measurable. Stage Two assessments should directly test those same verbs — if the objective says "analyze," the assessment should require analysis, not just recall.
Key Questions Answered
The most commonly asked questions about this topic, concisely answered.
- Backward Design is a curriculum planning framework developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe that starts with the desired learning outcomes and works backward to determine evidence of learning and then instructional activities. Unlike traditional approaches that begin with content, it begins with the question: what should learners be able to do when they're done?
- Stage 1 — Identify Desired Results: Define what learners should understand, know, and be able to do.
- Stage 2 — Determine Acceptable Evidence: Design assessments that directly measure those outcomes.
- Stage 3 — Plan Learning Experiences: Create instructional activities aligned to both the goals and the evidence.
- It is called Backward Design because you begin at the end — the desired learning outcome — and work backward through assessment design before planning any instruction. This reverses the common habit of selecting content first and figuring out assessment later.
- Backward Design was introduced by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in their late-1990s book Understanding by Design (UbD). It was developed as a response to content-heavy teaching that failed to ensure meaningful student understanding.
- Skipping Stage 2 — designing learning activities before assessments. If you don't define how you will measure success first, activities risk being engaging but not aligned to the intended outcomes. Assessment must drive instructional design, not follow it.
- Backward Design focuses specifically on aligning outcomes, assessment, and instruction — it is a curriculum design philosophy. ADDIE is a broader process framework covering analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Both can be used together; Backward Design principles naturally inform the Design phase of ADDIE.
- Use Bloom's Taxonomy action verbs to ensure objectives are measurable. A strong Stage 1 objective specifies what the learner will do, at what level of cognitive complexity, and in what context. For example: 'Analyze a case study and identify the root cause of the performance gap' is more useful than 'Understand performance gaps.'
- Enduring understandings are the overarching principles and big ideas learners should retain long after the course ends — insights that have lasting value beyond the immediate topic. They are distinct from facts or skills; they represent deep conceptual knowledge that transfers to new situations.
- Yes. Backward Design is highly applicable to corporate learning. Start by defining the job performance the training must produce (Stage 1), then determine how you will assess whether that performance has changed (Stage 2), and finally design scenarios, activities, and content to develop it (Stage 3). This keeps training directly connected to business outcomes.
- Backward Design aligns closely with Kirkpatrick's evaluation thinking. Stage 1 outcomes correspond to Kirkpatrick Level 2 (Learning) and Level 3 (Behavior) goals. Stage 2 assessments define how those levels will be measured. Planning evaluation before instruction — rather than after — is a principle both frameworks share.
- Both start from outcomes and work backward. Backward Design is a curriculum-level framework primarily used in education to align objectives, assessments, and instruction. Action Mapping adds a performance consulting layer specific to workplace training — it questions whether training is even the right solution and focuses on observable job behaviors rather than academic learning objectives.
- Start by defining what learners must be able to do after completing the module (Stage 1). Then design the assessment — a scenario, simulation, or practical task that directly tests that capability (Stage 2). Finally, build only the content and activities learners need to succeed on that assessment (Stage 3). This prevents the common eLearning trap of building content-heavy click-through modules with a quiz bolted on at the end.
