Weekly Essential Question:
What structure do we need in our instruction? Applying Instructional Design Techniques
Key Questions:
Why are objectives important?
How does Bloom's Taxonomy impact instructional design?
How can Group Teaching Techniques be Effective?
Key Takeaways:
I think that this one was rather challenging for me. It may have been because I was reading it in the van on the way home from The Big E in Massachusetts but I'm not sure. I see the topics for this week and I feel like I understand them but I feel as if I'm missing something. I don't know if I'm missing anything and if I am, I'm not sure what it is!
Objectives
- They are very important as they provide students with a map of what is going to be learned in class.
- They must have "action measurable verbs;" there are several levels of thinking.
- It's better when objectives are presented at a higher order level of thinking and followed by a higher order level of teaching.
- I'm worried that writing at a higher order level for objectives causes me to become less clear. I feel as if I use bigger words and try to make it more articulated so I lose my clarity. How do I overcome that?
Bloom's Taxonomy
- Knowledge, Comprehensive, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation
- The farther you go through this list, the more "harder thinking" that has to happen to accomplish the task.
Group Teaching Techniques
- Cooperative Learning; students work in small groups.
- pretty self explanatory, this technique is very useful when needing all students to know the same information.
- teachers must think of group demographics and room setup
- if students must monitor and evaluate their own and their peers work; they are more likely to behave and get the given task done
- This picture is what I hope does not happen in my classroom!
References:
Whittington, M.S. (2005). Writing objectives in secondary agriculture courses that challenge students to think. Agriculture Education Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.naae.org/profdevelopment/magazine/archive_issues/Volume77/v77i5.pdf
West Virginia University, (2010.). Bloom’s taxonomy. Retrieved from http://community.wvu.edu/~lsmong/Articulate%20Blooms%20Wheel/blooms_wheel.html
Newcomb, L.H., McCracken, J.D., Warmbrod, J.R., & Whittington, M.S. (1993). Methods of teaching agriculture. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Groseta, K.J. & Myers, B.E. (2006). Using cooperative learning in formal and nonformal education. Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/WC/WC06200.pdf
Finding the balance between educational jargon in an objective and meaningful words for students can be a challenge. Where I teach we have to have a written, visible "target" in class everyday and reconnect visually or verbally to it multiple times during the class period in order to be rated "highly effective" during our evaluations. We have been told they have to start " I can . . . by ..." There are times I feel like I could write a target/ objective with more meaning for my students yet I am following the protocol. This "battle" is one educators will often face - doing what makes sense in practice and doing is what required to get the "score." Of course, this makes me think of my own teaching and the students I teach - how many of them are truly engaged and how many of them are just "doing school" because they know what needs to be done to get the score?
ReplyDeleteI feel like connecting to it multiple times throughout the lesson is a good thing because it would keep the students on track. Although I do feel like "I can....by..." would give a single objective more structure per say but it would get boring and have no deep meaning after awhile because it's the same thing over and over again. Students would get used to it and ignore what is between those "prescribed" words.
ReplyDeleteHmm...Who said bigger words equals "higher levels of cognition?"
ReplyDeleteAlso, what are the other Group Teaching Techniques besides Cooperative Learning?
I agree - riding in the van is not conducive to learning.
Sara, I think that the cognitive levels of the objectives was referring more to the level that you want the students to learn at, not the words themselves. For example, if we are asking students to perform a high level task such as debating on a topic, we must teach them at a level high enough to do so. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteGreat thoughts! Writing your objectives is such a good habit to have. Even when administrators come to do your formal observation your first year teaching they look for those posted. All that goes to your PDE score!
ReplyDeleteSara, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on our weekly investment readings for this week! I also loved the memes you found to tie in with this subject!
ReplyDeleteSara,
ReplyDeleteI really like how you presented your thoughts for this week, it was very cohesive and understandable!
As many have already said, objectives are very important for a host of reasons. Remember to use words such as "analyze" "explain" "create", etc. when forming objectives. These words naturally drive students toward higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.
ReplyDelete