Views About Objectives - Artifact 7
Next I wanted to get an idea of students’ feelings about the use of objectives in my class. After a conversation with my classroom mentor and university supervisor I realized the way I incorporated objectives in my class may be a new experience for my students. This lead me to create a survey for students that would allow me to have a better idea of their experiences and views of what objectives are and how they can be important learning tools. I gave students Survey #1 to collect feedback about their thoughts on how useful objectives are in different applications, how they’ve seen them used in other classes and in this class.
I hoped that the students’ responses would give me insights into how other teachers are providing and using objectives in their classes as well as how students are (possibly independent of their teachers) using objectives in their other subjects.
It was interesting that many students indicated that none of their teachers used unit outlines with objectives or goals throughout a unit or towards the end of a unit in preparation for the test (Table 2). According to these students, the frequency their other teachers use objectives is daily or weekly in their classroom and they do not use them in in the summing up or end of a unit. This would need to be investigated further, with a larger number of students, before I could make any conclusive interpretations of what this means to student learning.
Data displayed in Table 3 indicates that many students were using the Chemistry unit outlines to start a unit, study, and at the end of a unit, presumably to study for the end of unit summative assessment. There is a positive correlation between how students say they were using the objectives and what they viewed useful applications of objectives (Table 1 vs. Table 3, Artifact 7).
I hoped that the students’ responses would give me insights into how other teachers are providing and using objectives in their classes as well as how students are (possibly independent of their teachers) using objectives in their other subjects.
It was interesting that many students indicated that none of their teachers used unit outlines with objectives or goals throughout a unit or towards the end of a unit in preparation for the test (Table 2). According to these students, the frequency their other teachers use objectives is daily or weekly in their classroom and they do not use them in in the summing up or end of a unit. This would need to be investigated further, with a larger number of students, before I could make any conclusive interpretations of what this means to student learning.
Data displayed in Table 3 indicates that many students were using the Chemistry unit outlines to start a unit, study, and at the end of a unit, presumably to study for the end of unit summative assessment. There is a positive correlation between how students say they were using the objectives and what they viewed useful applications of objectives (Table 1 vs. Table 3, Artifact 7).
This correlation seems pretty intuitive, you use tools you have access to when you believe they are useful. If students already saw a connection to the use of objectives to studying in preparation of summative assessments then I thought about how I could support student use of objectives in homework and daily lessons. This would support students’ use of objectives more regularly. With the use of daily objectives I engaged students in exit tickets and do nows to make explicit connections to the objectives guiding daily lessons. In addition, I continued to have students use summative assessments as a means of incorporating students’ self-assess of their understandings of learning objectives. I hoped to translate this realization of the application of objectives in classwork and homework. Developing students’ abilities to use of objectives in multiple ways, such as exit tickets, summative assessments, homework, and classwork, will support them utilize learning objective to structure their self-assessment of their understandings. In turn this would allow students to more regularly assess their confidence and understanding of each learning objective well before they are expected to preform on a summative assessment.
Up until this point I had kept in mind the goal of building student success. Although how I approached this had changed over the course of my inquiry journey, from the Enduring Understanding of Scientific Literacy to developing Metacognition with Learning objectives, this goal has not been altered. Every activity and lesson I engaged students originated from the desire to support student success in my classroom. As I neared the end of student teaching I decided an important to explore a facet of supporting students success that I had not yet considered; Students' Views on Success.
Up until this point I had kept in mind the goal of building student success. Although how I approached this had changed over the course of my inquiry journey, from the Enduring Understanding of Scientific Literacy to developing Metacognition with Learning objectives, this goal has not been altered. Every activity and lesson I engaged students originated from the desire to support student success in my classroom. As I neared the end of student teaching I decided an important to explore a facet of supporting students success that I had not yet considered; Students' Views on Success.