Results, then evidence, then lessons

Backward Design Unit Plan Template

A two-page unit plan in the three-stage backward-design order: decide what students should understand and be able to do, decide what would count as evidence, and only then lay out the learning events. Stage 3 is a ten-day table with a formative check per day.

Three stages, two pages

Backward design unit plan

Two-page unit plan with Stage 1 and Stage 2 boxes for goals, understandings, essential questions and evidence, then a ten-row learning plan table

Word Google Docs

Backward Design Unit Plan — Word & Google Docs

Stage 1 desired results, Stage 2 evidence, Stage 3 a ten-day learning plan with a formative check per day. Two pages.

Download Word Open in Google Docs

PDF

Backward Design Unit Plan — fillable PDF

2 pages, portrait. Type into the fields or print it blank and handwrite.

Download fillable PDF

Specifications: US Letter, 8.5 × 11 inches. Word files are editable .docx that open in Word 2007 through Microsoft 365, including Word for Mac; the Google Docs link makes a copy in your own Drive; the PDF has real form fields and prints as plain hairline boxes when blank. Free to use in as many classes as you like, no account, no watermark.

Why it is laid out this way

About the unit plan template

Backward design is the planning idea teachers most often recommend to each other. The point is the order: a unit planned from the activities forward tends to be a sequence of things to do; a unit planned from the results backward tends to be a sequence of things to learn. Stage 1 asks for established goals, the transfer students should be able to make on their own, the understandings and essential questions, and the knowledge and skills to acquire. Stage 2 asks what evidence would convince you. Stage 3 is the calendar.

This follows the three-stage process of Understanding by Design® as described by Wiggins and McTighe; UbD® is a registered trademark of Backward Design, LLC, and this template is an independent layout rather than their published form. If your program uses the official template, this one carries the same field names so work moves across.

Questions teachers ask

Unit Plan lesson plans, answered

How is a unit plan different from a lesson plan?

A lesson plan covers one period; a unit plan covers the two to four weeks that a set of lessons adds up to, and it holds the things that don't change day to day — the goals, the essential questions, the performance task. The daily sheets in this section are written to sit under a unit plan like this one: their standard and objective lines point back to Stage 1.

Why is Stage 3 only ten rows?

Ten days is the most common unit length, and a second page of rows is easy to add in Word or Google Docs. In the fillable PDF the table is fixed, so a longer unit uses two copies.

What goes in evaluative criteria?

What a good performance looks like, in words a student could read before starting — accuracy, use of evidence, clarity, whatever the task calls for. It is the seed of the rubric, written before the rubric, so the task is designed to produce the evidence rather than the other way round.