Video/Teachers interview - learning objectives.mp3/background
The audio clip features teachers discussing about 'feeling uncomfortable' when sharing learning objectives with their students. Whilst we acknowledge that sharing learning objectives with your students is not standard practice in Zambia 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 metacognition 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) has 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 metacognition are highly effective at improving attainment for very little cost. Ensure that participants have grasped this vital piece of information. http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/approaches/into
Observing, thinking, reflecting (5 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".”