Stating Objectives

I am taking a set of classes on Assessment. It is part of the New Teacher Support Program, and runs as a 4-part set. I'll admit that I wasn't necessarily thrilled about the other choices (differentiation and engagement). I feel like I do a fairly good job of differentiating, and will hopefully continue to improve. I also believe my kids are engaged, partially because of the content and partially because of my enthusiasm. So Assessment it was!

The big takeaway for me was connected to objectives. During student teaching I never posted my objectives. Some folks did, but I thought that it was fairly pointless. Who was I trying to appease, folks who walk into my room or my kids? I wasn't sold on the notion that my kids really would care that the objective was on the board. Fast forward to last fall and I was posting my objective. Why? I'll admit that initially it was more symbolic than functional. I saw others doing it and felt like "when in Rome, do as the Romans."

Over the course of the past 12-16 months I've changed my thinking a bit. I have my objectives posted on the Activboard everyday (same as before). I also state it at the beginning, and circle back to it after any direct instruction or when people move into independent work time. I've got reading/writing objectives as well as content objectives. I usually have the reading/writing skill posted, not the content (stated orally). My reasoning for posting it is to ensure that kids are aware of where we are going. Does everyone get it? No. But by stating the objective (which can change daily or weekly, depending on what we are working on) kids get an idea of what they need to practice. Is it asking questions while reading? Is it summarizing text? Is it...

The alternative is kids asking "why are we doing this?" Ugh. I still get that, but not as much as I used to.

What Do You Value?

In my social studies rotation we have focused on reading comprehension. A big part of that, in nonfiction particularly, is finding the main idea. But you can only go so far with that. Ultimately we need to be exercising our thinking skills, and trying to make sense of the information.

So the past 3 days have been focused on forming conclusions. "What do you think, did explorers have a positive impact on history or a negative impact?" Aside from the question "what do you mean 'impact'?" it has gone pretty well. I had them think of a scale, with the idea that the things which are most important to us influence our decisions/opinions.

We took some statements about explorers (conquered the Aztecs, found new land, etc) and placed them on a two-column chart. Then we looked at them altogether, and made a judgement one direction or the other. How successful was that? Mixed. Some really struggled looking holistically, while others were very clear about their opinion. The writing is still a work in progress, and tells me that I need to provide more writing instruction to get them where I want them to go. But I was happy that they were struggling with the ideas of positive and negative impacts. When I have kids saying, "Mr Hanson, it could be both positive and negative" I know that they are thinking critically about the information- precisely my objective.

How is a banana like an orange?

We working on comparing and contrasting today. The end goal was getting a chance to compare different information on explorers, and see similarities and differences. Why is that important? Well because it gets us thinking about patterns in the information we see. Additionally, it gets us taking a closer look at that information. Ultimately that is the goal, as we are moving towards looking at what impact did explorers have on history (positive and negative)?

The best part of this was modeling Venn diagrams with the kids. Part of the I do/We do/You do cycle involved me setting up a Venn diagram on fruits, and then starting to add to it. They got talking about what bananas and oranges had in common, and what was different. For example, one student said "they both need to be peeled." Well... really? Thankfully another student said "no, it doesn't need to be peeled. You can {squish} [hand smash on the table] it." That wasn't where it ended because I said "but you brought up a big point, maybe it doesn't need to be peeled, but think about that word peel..." The student replied "they both have peels or skin on the outside." Yes!

Once I cut them loose for independent practice, they did a great job. Included in that was one of my students restating the objective, and what he'd be able to learn from his Venn diagram. If there is one thing I have figured out, state your learning target often... and have it posted. Kids (and others) want to know what it is that you are doing, and WHY!