A Weekly Reflection: 4. Learning Objectives

This past week in our classes, we had our first lesson plan and our first unit plans due.  As I began to write and to plan how I wanted to deliver the content I plan on teaching to my FFA Leadership class, I began to realize that sometimes, it's difficult to write my ideas for lessons on paper as clear as they are in my head.  And if I can't make them clear to myself, how will my students ever understand what I am trying to teach them?!

I realized that it's all in the objectives!  My objectives for the day keep me on track during the lesson and lets my students know where class is going that day and what I will expect from them at the end. The key to having a successful lesson is writing clear objectives that really engage your students in higher-level thinking.

Choosing the right measurable verbs will ensure a stellar objective!

This week, I read an article on writing objectives for a secondary agricultural classroom.  Something that stuck with me from the article was the challenged that it posed to the teachers.  The article reminded us that if we are expecting our students to think on a higher cognitive level, we must teach on a higher cognitive level.  I thought this was something interesting to think about and something important to keep in mind as we continue developing objectives. 

In addition to reading the article on objectives this week, I watched this handy video that did a great job on giving an overview on what exactly objectives are and how they should be formulated.  Check it out!