Talk:OER4Schools/Learning objectives and success criteria

Whilst we acknowledge that sharing learning objectives with your students is not standard practice there are very good reasons for doing so. Students being aware of what they are expected to learn in a lesson is a step along the way towards them developing their understanding of what is involved in being successful. By students taking greater responsibility for their learning they are improving their meta-cognition and this has been shown by numerous researchers to have a high level of impact on attainment, especially for low ability students. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) have put together a toolkit currently covering 30 topics, each summarised in terms of their average impact on attainment, the strength of the evidence supporting them and their cost. You will see from this that strategies that improve student's meta-cognition are highly effective at improving attainment for very little cost. [[1]]

Focus on reflection

Observing, thinking, reflecting (15 min): Listening to some Zambian teachers reflecting on how they felt about sharing learning objectives with their students. We now listen to a clip that was recorded during an interview with a group of Zambian teachers that have been though the OER4 Schools professional development programme already. They have been asked by the interviewer if there are any new practices that they have learned through the programme they felt that they may not continue with in their own practice.

“I should just know those objectives as a teacher, but not necessarily telling them to say "today we are going to achieve these objectives".”

Teachers interview - learning objectives:

AUDIO

Teachers interview - learning objectives

The audio clip features teachers discussing about 'feeling uncomfortable' when sharing learning objectives with their students.

Teachers interview - learning objectives.mp3, 1:23,(Series: OER4Schools audio, episode N/A)

'Transcript: I think personally I would not continue the, telling the kids about brainstorming, this is brainstorming, yeah I wasn't comfortable with that, even telling them the objectives that I'm going to, yeah, I will still stick to what I was taught. I should just know those objectives as a teacher, but not necessarily telling them to say "today we are going to achieve these objectives" ah ah, even the ones where what we are doing now is brainstorming, personally I wasn't comfortable with that! I don't know, maybe, I wasn't comfortable.

Different speaker: I think, to come in on that, even the inspectors if they have come, cos this is not taught in Zambian content. I think you can be questioned that "why are you saying that now it's time for brainstorming?" "It's time for objective, I'll tell you my objective". I think they can question you, "where have you learned this? which lecturer, which college?". You know, they do talk! So I think, the way she has said, even me I was not comfortable, I wasn't. It's better just to come in, ask a question, for you, you know that on your lesson plan you have written "brainstorming". What type of brainstorming? I'll ask you this question. Or I'll tell them to do this. That way, you will be able to know that I have achieved my brainstorm.

And then maybe when it comes to the objective, you are as the teacher, you know what you are going to teach in that lesson, because when preparing your lesson you know maybe you have put two objectives or even one, if you have seen one it's enough, you just put that objective, not to reaching an extent of telling the learners "my objective today it’s this and this and this" ah I don't think so, we have gone to two colleges, we have never been taught about that, yes.