Objectives

Objectives = = =Read and Reflect= I really liked the individual learning goals worksheet. I liked that it was a quick sheet where I could input what I know I have to teach, but then students also have to give input on what they know and two items that they would like to know more about. This would provide an ideal way to personalize the given objectives.
 * The purpose of setting objectives in the classroom is to create a clear road map of the journey the students will be taking with the new unit/lesson. It also helps to have students create personal goals beyond the goals created by the teacher.
 * Setting objectives is something that I believe I do very informally with the students currently. Generally before each lesson, I describe what we are learning about today and then connect that to what we learned in the past as well as what we will learn in the future. Parents are also involved in these goals through short paragraphs in my weekly Friday Note. These blurbs are quick descriptions of what we have learned and where we are going. I believe the greatest drawback to that is that the whole process is simply me standing in front of the group of students talking, talking, talking or sending messages to the parents by typing, typing, typing. The students are not active participants in the creation of the objectives.
 * Some questions that I have about setting objectives in my classroom...
 * What is the best way to create rubrics that are fair when it comes to scoring?
 * How can I be efficient when it comes to allowing students to assist in setting objectives?

Another tool that I use occasionally, but not often enough, is rubrics. Since I teach math, science, and social studies, I often think, “Oh, rubrics do not apply to me. They do not fit with my content. That’s more for language arts and writing.” I have begun to challenge myself to incorporate more rubrics. There are two issues that I often run into with rubrics. The first is I am not an expert at making them and I feel like when I grade them I am making a judgment call on a student. The wording is often vague and broad allowing the students room to explore and be creative, but then creating a grey area for when it comes time for me to assess their work. I like to grade in black and white. You calculated to the correct number, you applied the correct fact. On the up side, really assessing that assignment rather than grading a worksheet will help me truly understand what the student understands. Second, I find the grade range in rubrics to be challenging. If a student produces a very poor product, it seems as if they are still able to receive a score that is not reflective of the quality of their product. It’s possible that I will need to spend more time developing and grading with rubrics so that they no longer seem like a impossible grading system.

=Apply and Reflect=

As an application of setting objectives, I utilized Rubristar in order to have the students develop their own rubric for a social studies project. In short, the students are creating game pieces for a large game display called: The Guess the Region Collage Game. On the front of their game piece, students will make a collage that represents that region. One the inside of their game piece, students will have to write a few facts about their region.

I decided to let the students develop their own rubric, because I wanted them to feel ownership over the project. I wanted them to feel like the way I graded them was fair, because they chose the criteria. Plus, I wanted to figure out what was important to them when it came to me grading their work. All in all, I wanted them to be connected to the project so that they would be able to give their best effort.

The use of Rubristar was quite effortless. (But, the website did give me an error page and we lost all of our work for one class so we had to begin again. Plus the 40 minute time limit to develop a rubric really adds stress to my experience.) In fact, the website already had the base for a collage rubric. The students selected three criteria that were important to them and together we tweaked the criteria so that it would work for their project. Most of the students were engaged during the process. Unfortunately, the projects are not due until November 2nd so I will be unable to decide if helping to create the rubric created more investment in the students and thus produced more quality projects.

Below you can see the rubrics created by both of my social studies sessions.