Grant Wiggins (1950–2015) was an American educator and assessment researcher whose backward design framework, developed with Jay McTighe, reshaped curriculum planning.
Core ideas
- Backward design: curriculum planning should start with desired results (what should learners understand and be able to do?), then determine acceptable evidence (how will we know they understand?), and only then plan learning experiences and instruction. This reverses the common practice of starting with activities or content coverage [@wigginsmctighe2005].
- Understanding vs. knowledge: Wiggins distinguished understanding (the ability to transfer learning to new situations) from mere knowledge (recall of facts). Curriculum should aim for understanding, and assessments should require transfer, not just recognition.
- Essential questions: good curricula are organized around questions that are genuinely open, recur across contexts, and provoke sustained inquiry — not around topics or chapters.
Notable works
- Understanding by Design (1998; 2nd ed. 2005, with Jay McTighe)
- Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance (1998)
Related
- designing effective lessons — the vault’s lesson design applies backward design
- designing curricula — the vault’s curriculum design draws on Wiggins and McTighe
- Paulo Freire — Wiggins’s emphasis on understanding over recall resonates with Freire’s critique of the banking model