Backward Design:A Lesson Study Of UbD Template Application To English Class Of Junior High School

Backward design is an up-to-date way to make instructional design.It regulates that the design starts from students’ learning results,and decides assessments and specific classroom activities based on the desired learning results.In order to implement backward design,UbD template(Understanding by Design)is to be used for practice.Different from the conventional instructional design that begins with teaching martials,teaching methods and teaching activities,backward design emphasizes the three stages,including desired results,evidence and learning plan.The “big idea” goes aligned with key competencies defined in the new English curriculum standard in 2017.Therefore,the process of pursuing the “big idea” is the way to explore how to cultivate key competencies in English teaching.However,it has not received enough attention and practice in the field of language teaching in our country as a new exploration of teaching design.For the above reason,this study mainly aims to apply UbD template of backward design to junior high school English teaching.Three research questions are to be answered: 1)How to apply UbD template to the instructional design? 2)What is the effect of the instructional design within UbD mode? In class,did students achieve the desired learning outcomes?The research is comprised of two rounds of lesson study.In each round,the instructional design based on backward design was explored and practiced.Students’ performance was recorded,observed,analyzed and evaluated as the results of teaching according to the assessment standard of backward design,followed by the author’s reflection.In the reflection,the teaching effect was appraised and the problems of implementation was perceived for further improvement.From the two rounds of teaching practice,the tips of implementing backward design are summarized.As the author perceived,The results show that students can use what they have learned in the new task,and they have gained the “big idea” to some extent.Concurrently,there still exist problems and challenges for further improvement like how to break the unit restriction to organize the suitable teaching materials,how to change students’ thinking route and stimulate their deep thinking,and how to establish more specific assessment standards.Backward design and the UbD template still deserve more exploration in the future.