Back to: Planning
How do teachers decide if what they do is successful?
The logical answer, of course, is that their students learn. The next question would be what is it that they expect their students to learn? (Answer: specific and defined content.) Curriculum is defined as a set of goals that reflect this content. Effective teachers map out both the goals of instruction as well as the specific skills or behaviors they want students to acquire and demonstrate. Failure to do so results in poor student performance and scattered instruction. A prerequisite to instruction is the writing of goals, defining precisely what students will acquire or accomplish as a result of a lesson, chapter, or content course. Instructional goals specify what learners will do, under what conditions, and the criteria that will be used to determine progress and performance.
Review Goals Periodically
To maintain a high level of instruction, effective educators continually review and revise exactly what they want their students to accomplish. Be assured that the more precise and exact your instructional objectives the better the learning results. Why? Because both you and your students will know exactly what is expected and consequently will understand what must be accomplished to receive a certain grade or mark. As the instructor, you will be better able to tailor and monitor students’ learning and progress because you will know what it is they are working toward.
More and more educators are moving away from simple adoption of textbook or curriculum guide objectives to developing those that are a result of a collective effort of parents, teachers, students, and administrators. Regardless of what instructional objectives are used, be sure they reflect the needs of individual learners in classroom and the expected outcomes of learning.
Write Acceptable Objectives
Once you have determined what the goals of instruction are, it is time to write the corresponding objectives. Instructional objectives must be clearly expressed so that they are understood by all (including other teachers, substitutes, students, parents, administrators, and paraprofessionals). They should be observable, measurable, student-centered, and include products of learning. Here are four desired characteristics of acceptable objectives:
- Content-What the student will be learning (e.g., functional math).
- Behavior-What the student will be doing to learn the content (e.g., completing addition facts).
- Conditions-Circumstances under which the student be performing the behavior (e.g., in a checkbook).
- Criteria-Expected level of performance (e.g., rate of 40 correct per minute.
Example: Martha will write the answers to addition facts in a checkbook at a rate of 40 correct per minute.
Be sure you can identify each of the essential components of the objective whenever you write one.
Consider levels of Learner Proficiency
Prior knowledge and the learning history each student brings to the table may be quite different. As a general rule, when writing goals, selecting instructional content, and developing objectives, arrange to teach in such a way that lessons contain 75% known and 25% unknown material.
Effective teachers identify the types of knowledge demands of instructional materials and the appropriate proficiency level for each objective: What type of knowledge (fact, concept, strategy) and level of proficiency does the task or objective demand? Finally, what level is the student performing (acquisition/accuracy, fluency/mastery, or automaticity/generalization). All students reach proficiency levels at different rates thorough the curriculum. Not all students will learn the same thing in the same way or at the same time. This is especially true considering the types of content being delivered (facts, concepts, or strategies). Levels of proficiency (e.g., accuracy, automaticity) reflect how to measure student performance, so considering task demands and current levels of performance or proficiency should guide effective instruction (see above).
Consider Knowledge Demands
In general, three types of knowledge are typically taught: factual, conceptual, and strategic. Instruction for any objective may include all three types of knowledge. In identifying different components of a task, one can identify which type of knowledge is being demanded and can plan accordingly for groups or individual students. For example, some students have difficulty problem solving, identifying a rule or procedure to solve a particular problem. In knowing this, a teacher can provide prompts, mnemonics, or learning strategies to aid the student. While other students may be able to produce the strategic knowledge to solve this same task, they may be weak in their ability to define and identify characteristics or attributes needed to actually put problem solving into motion. It is not uncommon for students, when working with mathematical word problems, to know how to solve them but be unable to identify essential facts in order to correctly complete the task. With this in mind, effective teachers plan accordingly using a lesson format that takes into consideration prior knowledge needed for the lesson and the types of knowledge and teacher actions required to teach the skills. (Also see Planning: What to Teach\Establish Logical Sequences of Instruction)
Modify Objectives When Appropriate
Often it is necessary to adapt instructional objectives to meet a wide range of learning needs. This can be done without rewriting new objectives. By modifying the behavior and/or criteria, it is possible to alter an objective and provide instruction that is very close to the original one without rewriting a new one. For example, notice how the following objective is modified to meet the needs of Trish, a student with learning problems.
Class Objective: Students will write at least one paragraph about butterflies that includes a topic sentence, at least two facts, a concluding sentence, and no more than two errors in mechanics.
Trish’s IEP Goal: Trish will move from speaking in incomplete thoughts to communicating ideas around a topic using complete thoughts.
We can modify the original classroom objective for Trish by changing both the behavior and criteria as follows:
Trish’s Objective: After drawing a picture of a butterfly, Trish will orally tell two supporting facts about butterflies.
There are many ways to modify an original classroom objective to meet a wider range of learner needs in the classroom. The point is not to take on the arduous task of creating new ones until the original ones prove to be ineffective. Be creative with behavior, conditions, content, and criteria. Be sure that you are modifying for a reason and to specific performance standard. Modify for a purpose.
Adapted from K. W. Howell, S. L. Fox, and M. Morehead. (1993). Curriculum-based evaluation: Teaching and decision making.