Assignment #8: Complete the 4 part assignment format as you read, reflect, and respond to Chapter 8: Setting Objectives & Providing Feedback.
ALL PARTICIPANTS PLEASE READ THE NOTE BELOW!!!
Although your course packet asks you to post to blog for parts A, B, C, and D…we are asking that you only post part Dto the blog. We’re trying to make the blog more user-friendly and easier to read. Thanks!
A. Self Assessment of Current Beliefs and Practices: This component asks you to reflect on how and why you currently use the instructional strategy of Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback in your classroom. The intent of this is to activate your prior knowledge of your strategy use so that you can make comparisons as you read the chapter. Below are the questions to help you complete your self-assessment.
• What is your purpose when you set objectives and/or feedback in your classroom?
• How do you set objectives in your current classroom instruction?
• When and how do you communicate classroom objectives to your students?
• What kind of feedback do you provide for your students?
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”: This portion of the assignment asks you to read Chapter 8 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section for Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback.
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to try out with your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom).
D. Final Strategy Reflection: Use the following sequence of questions/prompts to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post your brief reflection to the posting labeled Week Eight: Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback by clicking on the “comment” link below.
How has the information you read in this chapter on Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback effected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? Use the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• The generalizations related to setting objectives explain that goals should be clear and specific, but also flexible enough for students to personalize the goals. Consider the objectives you are expected to use, that is, those provided by your school, district, or state. To what extent do you feel they meet the criteria of clarity, specificity, and flexibility?
• How does the information in Figure 8.3 about "Corrective Feedback" shed light on your own experiences with giving and receiving feedback? For example, does it surprise you that research indicates that simply telling students whether an answer is right or wrong can have a negative effect on their achievement?
• How might you change how you communicate objectives to students and parents?
• How will you monitor how well students are meeting their learning objectives?
• How will you engage students in the feedback process (consider use of rubrics?)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I like sitting with students one-on-one during the Daily 5 and setting individual goals. That would be my ideal setting for goals and giving them feedback that is current as well as meaningful. This next year I am teaching math to 135 sixth grade students each day and meeting with each student to set individual goals is something that I will not be able to keep up with. I will have my conferring table next to my desk so when there is a need to work one-on-one I can still do so. I may find it overwhelming and default to the district’s policy of learning and objective goals for each lesson which are provided in the Oregon Focus on Math text books as learning “Targets” and tie into the standards.
I agree that pointing out to kids what they are learning today is helpful to them because it gives them a clear understanding of the skills they need to use that day. I also agree that connecting it with past lessons helps the student draw on past learning in order to have a more comprehensive understanding. Our school sends out mid-term grade reports for each quarter; while this is helpful in providing feedback to parents and students it is not timely. I have adopted weekly progress reports and mid week missing work reports for parents to sign. I do this because it helps conferences go much more smoothly. There are no surprises, explosions and it makes my life a little busier to make it a whole lot less stressful. I also don’t have to remind students of what they need to work on because they get it placed in their hand 2 times a week. I will continue that practice as well as meet with students in small groups each week to reflect on their math accomplishments and areas where they think they need another lesson of examples.
The goal is proficiency which for our 6th grade is 70% or higher on exits from each lesson. I only track proficiencies in the grade book and record homework as practice grade each week. Therefore a progress report provides clear indication of what proficiencies need to be addressed and it gets placed in the parent’s hands weekly. I do not foresee any need to change this system. Students do have their individual proficiency tracking sheets with which they can track their progress. This is a type of rubric tracking: “Not yet Proficient, Proficient, Exceeds, and Mastery.”
My main goal this year is to provide meaningful feedback to each student who asks the question, “When am I ever going to need to know this besides in school?” I want that question answered every class because some students have a sense that they “bested the teacher” that they are pretty smart in pointing out something so useless when the teacher thinks they need to learn it. My goal is to not only provide a learning goal and objective goal for each lesson, I want to provide an application and a life career goal for each strand of math that the students can identify as making the lesson meaningful. The other question I will follow that feedback with is, “What are you going to be doing in 20 years? If you or I knew that I could tell you if you will have a need for this skill.”
Week Eight: Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
This was a very timely chapter for me to read as our district over the last year has really taken a strong focus on goal setting and language objectives that are to be posted in the classroom for the learners to see, and for any other person who comes in the classroom to see from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The objectives should be written in a manner that students understand the objective and if questioned can explain to another adult visiting the classroom what is being taught. This has been a difficult task for elementary teachers, especially primary teachers as to how to write them to make them useful in the classroom and how to have so many posted when unlike high school and middle school teachers, we are responsible for the students in all subject matters. I have struggled with this all year long and although I consider my self an organized teacher I have not been able to manage this one extra thing that I do not feel like I completely understand. I am not sure how to write them (with the proper verb-age etc. and how to make them kid friendly and useful). It has been a bit of a self defeating feeling to not completely know how to make this work for me or my classroom.
This chapter did help me to understand some of the research and theory behind setting goals and I can appreciate the idea that the goals be specific but flexible. I also completely agree with the how important it is to give feedback in a timely manner. I think that is something elementary teachers are pretty good at because we understand how important immediate feedback is to our young learners. I did appreciate the information in figure 8.3 with the type of feedback and the gains made by the different ways to give feedback. It is important to tell students what was wrong and to give an explanation, I agree with that even for myself as a learner. I realize that the content in this chapter is not exactly the type of goals setting that I am currently dealing with in my district, although I still found the points valid and yet hard to incorporate into my teaching and assessment of my students. Although I do “goal set” in my classroom with Daily 5, it is at such a minimal extent with kindergarten students, that I hardly feel like I am doing the kind of goal setting that this chapter is mentioning.
The part of this chapter and my districts focus is the difficulty in communicating this type of goals to kindergarten and first grade students. I am still really confused on how to make this more user friendly for younger students. While I know I set goals for my students and at conference time I am communicating those goals to parents I am not sure if that is what the intent of this chapter is stating. While I do agree with and appreciate the content, suggestions and findings in this chapter I did find it hard to determine how I would really be able to use this in a primary classroom, maybe it will be more easy next year with my second graders.
Assignment 8: Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
I really loved this chapter. I think my major weakness as a teacher is giving students timely, effective feedback. I need to figure a way to avoid collecting all my 36 students writing at one time because I feel so overwhelmed when I get it all at once I put it off until it really doesn’t matter anymore. I have a goal this year of conferencing more with my students, both as individuals and in small groups. I am hoping that will help in the area of feedback. I have used teacher created, district and state created and student created rubrics in my classroom, but not really in the last few years – except in writing. I think I might go back to using those this year. I feel pretty confident with my teaching and using of the writing rubric, I just need to try to use them more across the curriculum.
I also really liked stating the learning objectives, but leaving room for flexibility, letting the kids decide the specifics of what they want to learn. I have done some of this by using KWL charts, but have always done those whole-group, and then I haven’t been very good about going back and review/discussing the “L” column. I really like the idea of keeping learning journals and providing sentence frames like “I want to know…” as a starting point. I think this will allow kids to feel more in-charge of their learning and also give them a point of discussion for reviewing what they have learned with themselves and others. It would also give me another way to assess what students are learning.
I also would be interested in trying out the learning contract idea, but need to reread that section and do a little more research as to what that might look like in my classroom.
Hi Sam!
I agree, I wouldn't change your system either. I am sure your parents (or most of them) value the time you take to keep them informed with your progress reports. As you said, the time you spend on this helps to minimize stress. I also think your goal of providing the purpose students need to learn a skill is an excellent one. I hope you have shared this with your team and other teachers in your building.
Hello Margaret!
There is often the difference between elementary and middle/high school level teachers when K-12 mandates are given by the administration. Your point of the difficulty to post the objectives for all the subjects that the elmentary teachers teach and in a language that the primary/elementary students will understand is important for administrators to remember.
Could you start with whole class goals? See how they go and then work towards the individual goals?
Hi Louise!
The thought I had about your students writing journals was this: Do you have to collect all 36 at one time? I would spread it out over the week so you aren't overwhelmed. Or do this and ask if anyone has something that they want you to look at right away. You can add that into your stack. Another idea is to have the students select which parts of the journal they want you to read and respond to. As with reading, students need a tremendous amount of time to practice writing. Not all of the writing needs to be corrected or commented on. Think if a teacher corrected every single error that a student made when they were learning to read or reading independently to themself. It would kill the joy of reading. So, I would say take the pressure off your self of having to read those journals every night and allow your students the time to just write. :D
Post a Comment