10 Comments

I love the feeling of your pandemic friend sighing at the effort of summer growth and the release that comes with fall. And Backward Design is so positive...manifesting, in essence: put it out to the Universe fully formed and then work with the forces that be.

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No grades and backward design are a beautiful tonic the "What's next?" panic of incoming assignments, if I remember correctly.

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Wisdom!

I love the idea of trying out the backwards design for yourself. I mean oneself. I mean myself! 💕

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I love this suggestion because it obviates time. No - not obviates, but transforms, transposes, so that our goals do not depend on some future expectation or hope or possibility, but illuminates how we get there, changes the impetus, maybe even even changes the direction.

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And those 25 stories are....?

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Post great a what!

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wonderful. Yes, to Backwards Design - remarkably, it creates more possibility -

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Thank you for making Alice on Sunday available. I applaud your decision, thinking that such a big part of writing is the audience, it is a good move to broaden your reach. And, as a public school educator and teacher of teachers, I am excited at Backwards Design making it to the hallowed halls of academe. Once you start thinking this way, it makes such sense. Effective change relies on the changer welcoming change.as you do.

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I can't begin to tell you how much I identify with this post. I think I'm also planning to keep my Substack free for many of the reasons that Catherine Clepper (who sounds terrific, by the way) may have touched on in her course—accessibility and so forth. I also love learning innovative new teaching gems even though I've been doing this for years, as you have. This year my college asked me to help direct the Center for Advancement of Faculty Excellence in addition to teaching, and I'm pretty excited about that. Backwards Design is fascinating in its pedagogical applications, but also—as you're playing on so wonderfully in this post—in creativity and thought. As in, what can Backwards Design bring to the construction of those short stories you're teaching this semester...Anyway, I could go on and on, but I will control myself, but thanks for this post.

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Best wishes for your new position, it sounds exciting, and I appreciate these comments. Yes, much discussion about accessibility, and yes, free is an expression of that.

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