Backward Design Changed My Teaching—for the Better

Classes start in about three weeks at UNC Greensboro, where I’m heading into my ninth year of teaching arts management. Over the next week, I’m sharing five ideas on my mind as we start the school year—starting with a big one that transformed how I teach: backward design.

In 2019, after my second year of teaching full time, I attended a workshop from UNCG’s our teaching and learning center focused on online instruction. I figured I’d teach online someday, so why not get a jumpstart? (Little did I know that I would be using that knowledge in full force just the next year!) What I didn’t expect was to leave with a whole new mindset about course design.

The workshop centered on backward design, a method formalized by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in their 1998 book Understanding by Design. The concept is simple, but powerful:

#1: Get clear about what you want students to do by the end of a class, unit, or course.

#2: Design assessments that measure whether they can actually do it.

#3: Build your lessons to teach them how to get there.

This flipped the script for me. I used to plan around topics—“this week we’ll cover marketing” or “this class is about fundraising strategy.” Now I start with outcomes: What will students walk away able to apply, build, create, or analyze? From there, everything gets clearer—for me and for them.

Clarity Builds Confidence

Backward design forces instructors to make their goals explicit. No more vague ambitions or mysterious grading criteria. I’ve found that when students know exactly what they’re expected to learn—and how they’ll be evaluated—they relax. Their mental energy shifts from anxious guesswork to focused engagement. And when they’re confident, they often exceed expectations, following curiosity beyond what’s required.

Some colleagues worry that this kind of clarity stifles creativity. In my experience, it does the opposite. When students feel secure about the expectations, the intrinsically motivated ones go further. They experiment. They take risks. And the ones who need more structure? They thrive too, because they know what success looks like.

It’s Also Just More Fair

Clear learning goals make assignments fairer. Students know what counts, and they can hold me accountable if I veer off-course in grading. That transparency builds trust. It also honors students as adults—people with ambitions, competing demands, and a right to understand the value of their time.

Too often, teaching defaults into a paternalistic “I know what you need to learn” dynamic. Backward design helps me resist that. Instead, I see myself as a mentor-coach, not a gatekeeper. The classroom is for the students, not for me to hold court on whatever interests me that day.

A Practice for Any Modality

In the workshop, backward design was pitched as essential for online learning—where you can’t rely on in-the-moment feedback to gauge comprehension. But I’ve found it just as powerful in person. Students are more invested when they know why we’re doing what we’re doing, and how it connects to their goals.

A Creative Challenge

Here’s what might surprise you: I find backward design fun. It’s creatively satisfying to start with “my students really need to learn this,” then reverse-engineer a path from that insight to a meaningful activity or assignment. It’s a challenge I enjoy—one that’s made my teaching better and more intentional.

In my next post, I’ll share how I build lectures for engagement to meet these concrete goals.