Planning with the End in Mind: Aligning Objectives, Activities, and Assessments for Student Success
CATE Workshops
September 2, 2025
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Location
Teaching Excellece Building (TEB), Room 201
Calendar
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Are you designing a new course or revising an old one? Backward design encourages you to consider what you really want students to genuinely learn and take with them long after the semester is over through meaningful alignment of objectives, assessment, and activities. In this workshop, we will discuss the backward design framework and practice reimagining our course with learning objectives as the starting point. Participants will be able to discuss the significance of aligning goals, assessments, and activities for their students’ academic success as well as apply this framework to their learning objectives.
After participating in this workshop you will be able to:
- Explain the advantages of integrating backward design into course design, including its impact on student learning outcomes.
- Recognize the value of using backward design to align course outcomes, assessments, and activities.
- Identify tools and methods needed to apply backward design to your courses effectively.
EVENT FORMAT: This workshop will be held on-campus, in-person in room 201 in the Teaching Excellence Building (TEB) located on 924 S. Morgan Street.
EVENT LEAD: Emily Potratz, epotra2@uic.edu
EVENT CO-FACILITATOR: Jenny Torres, jtorr74@uic.edu
Inclusion and Accessibility Information: CATE is committed to making events accessible. CATE’s in-person events typically involve a combination of presentation and discussion-based activities. We welcome ASL interpreters, note-takers, and accompanying assistants to all CATE events. The TEB is wheelchair accessible with an elevator to the second floor space. The TEB space is equipped with fixed-height tables that are moveable and can be reconfigured. There are single-occupancy, all-gender, accessible bathrooms on the second and basement levels of TEB. If you have any accessibility questions, requests, or to coordinate accommodations, please contact the CATE team at teaching@uic.edu.
Date posted
Jul 20, 2025
Date updated
Aug 14, 2025