Comments on: Should Teachers Post Objectives?

By: chase orton

chase orton — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 01:16:02 +0000

These last two posts have me thinking:

Student desire to know the objective should often precede the statement of the objective.

Students should experience the objective well before they read the language of the objective.

Language in the objectives can be formalized as the lesson evolves.

And the need to evolve that language can structure the learning experience at the tail end of lessons through reflection on learning.

I’m enjoying this convo. I wrote a second post about objectives here: http://undercovercalculus.com/objectives-2/

Would love to hear thoughts.

By: harryomalley

harryomalley — Sat, 01 Apr 2017 19:54:44 +0000

The faster you can make it clear to students what it is they are supposed to be learning to know and be able to do, the better. Posting learning objectives, though, doesn’t usually accomplish this. Imagine I posted the following learning objective:

“Today you will learn how to scrum a gabob whose denominator has been rationalized.”

Even if this is accurate, it does not clarify anything to the learner. Without any direct experience watching someone “scrum” or seeing a “gabob”, the sentence is meaningless.

Students will not be able to understand the learning objective until they have seen someone do it*, with appropriate terms identified throughout the process, and have done it themselves a number of times. At this point, posting the objective is useful as a scaffold to have students practice internalizing the language used to describe what they are learning to do. Having students practice saying it, first while looking at the learning objective and then without looking, helps them internalize the language. But only after they have had direct experience with the objects and actions the words refer to.

*in a problem-based or discovery lesson, the person they initially see perform the learning objective could partly or entirely be themselves

By: Eli

Eli — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 21:13:50 +0000

We (schools in my area) are basically told to post objectives at the beginning of every lesson from the Ontario Ministry of education. In addition to this we should also co-create success criteria with the students… according to the Ministry. These criteria are basically descriptions of what success looks like.

Many teachers in my school are resistant to this. I am not fully sure how I feel. I do think that the most authentic learning takes place when the student has a goal of what they want to know. Canned objectives usually aren’t fruitful whenever they occur. But if your starting point is something the students wants to do then objectives just become something the student needs to accomplish the larger goal.

Teaching then becomes you add an expert guide helping the student reach the goal they are already motivated to achieve.

This is one reason I am a big fan of problem based stuff. When it is real, challenging, nuanced, and there is risk (possibility of failure) students seem to wake up.

By: Michael Fenton

Michael Fenton — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 15:57:21 +0000

Thanks for weighing in, Martha! I really like the idea of recording objectives along the way, or as part of the closure of a lesson.

By: Martha Mulligan

Martha Mulligan — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 08:33:00 +0000

Now I’m hopping into this conversation even later. It’s interesting to me in particular because I was just in a few classrooms in a school in which all the teachers were told that they *must* have their objectives on the board, at the front of the class, at the start of the class. In one class I even saw that there were empty boxes next to each of the objectives, waiting for the check to be dropped into them, after they’ve been ‘covered.’ (I HATE using the term ‘covered’ to talk about what’s been learned – or not learned – in math class.) To me, this practice lends itself more to the *telling* part of teaching and less to the *facilitating* part of teaching. Teachers prioritize getting through all of the objectives – covering them – than ensuring that students learn mathematics deeply. What if we don’t have them there at the start of class and then when the objectives have been discovered/revealed by the students, teachers can put them on the board as reinforcement and framing of what has been learned?

By: mrcorleymath

mrcorleymath — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 16:13:17 +0000

Hopping in late here. Let’s assume I do not list the objective, and I end the lesson. Shouldn’t I as a teacher be checking for understanding throughout, and especially at the end of the lesson to make sure the objective has been met. If the students do show they have met the objective, haven’t I accomplished my goal?

Another issue I have with posting the objective is the idea that I am usually hitting multiple objectives in 1 class. In addition to hitting objectives for that class period, I am reinforcing ideas from previous lessons and previous chapters, which are all part of my design of the lesson. Should I make students aware of all of them?

By: mslwheeler

mslwheeler — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 11:24:06 +0000

Sometimes. If the lesson starts with problem-solving (PBL) then don’t share the learning target to start, but make sure it comes out in the consolidation / debrief. If the lesson is more discovery or exploration based, then I think you can phrase the learning goal as a question at the start of the lesson in such a way that it does not give away the punch line. Still important to make sure they’ve understood & met the learning goal at lesson’s end.

By: mrdardy

mrdardy — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 10:05:10 +0000

I do not remember ever having objectives posted when I was a student, but I am old and may just not remember. I know I have never posted objectives as a teacher and I hope I have not been robbing my students. What I do try to focus on, and I fail at this too often, is to reflect at the end and point out what we have accomplished. I struggle with the idea of an objective in a way that is similar to how I struggle with SBG. I feel that good, organic conversations in class will rarely focus on a single objective/standard/skill. I hope our objective each day is simply to continue developing as learners.

By: Michael Fenton

Michael Fenton — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 18:19:23 +0000

David, thanks for weighing in. That’s makes a lot of sense. Two things I’m curious about in your classroom…

1. How do you then help students understand how what they’re learning on one day fits into the big picture of a week/unit/year?

2. Do you discuss objectives in the closure part of a discovery lesson? If so, what does that typically look like?

By: David DeLaby

David DeLaby — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 17:26:39 +0000

From my perspective, it depends, but since most of my lessons are discovery type lessons, I prefer not to post the objective. Posting the objective ahead of the lesson has two potential harmful effects. First, it can dilute or even kill the discovery aspect of the lesson, and second, it can prevent the introduction of other important mathematics, that although not the intent of the lesson, becomes a golden opportunity to introduce an important concept in a meaningful situation and thus reinforce how connected mathematics truly is.