Reflective Journal #3
I think that the challenge of deriving a learning target is rephrasing it into terms that can be easily understood by the students. I feel that the language of the learning target, all though direct, may use terms that would be difficult to a young learner, such as in the younger elementary grades. The difficult part is breaking down the learning target by using the words from the state standards so that it is understandable, but also still carries the essence of the learning target. However, I think that is solvable after you have given your students enough tools and enough practice to fully understand the learning target verbiage. I think that another challenge is phrasing the learning target to align with specific lesson without over complicating it. I think that it can be over complicated when you are trying to express the goal to students when there are too many objectives that can fit within a single simple lesson. One solution is to look at the standard and break it down into multiple steps, which then can be addressed individually in your learning targets.
The learning targets directly inform the teacher and the students what they are expected to learn and achieve in a lesson. They inform students to how much work they need to put into the assignment in order to be successful. Each learning target needs to address something measurable, so that teachers and students can know what they need to do in order to meet their goals and to be able to check that they are meeting those goals. This connects to assessment, because it is through assessment that teachers and students will be able to know if they met the goals expressed in the learning target.
Hey Lillian! Making sure that your learning targets are easy for students to understand is so important and something I haven't given a whole lot of thought to. I really liked that you included a solution to making sure students understand your learning target in your explanation as well so others who may have been struggling too can get an idea on how to solve it. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteLillian,
ReplyDeleteTaking a standard, that contains an undetermined number of steps to achieve, and writing a target that contains only one of those targets, is hard. The resulting targets can often come out massively complicated and contain not the one learning target we are striving for, but many. I can sympathize with your struggles. Learning is not always linear, and yet I feel that the process of deconstructing a target is asking us to create a sequence of targets that is linear. Hopefully with a little practice, we'll get there!
Hi Lillian,
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is very important to be sure that our learning targets are easy to understand for students. We don’t want to use language they wouldn’t understand when the target is for them. We want to use language and be clear when creating learning targets for our students. I also agree with you that they can come out complicated when we are trying to fit too much into one target. I’m sure over time we will become more comfortable with these concepts and be able to create them with ease.
Lillian,
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you mentioned rephrasing the idea you want for the learning target into student friendly word. Finding a balance between writing something that is measurable and precise but also in language that is not beyond the ability of students to understand is something I find extremely difficult, especially for the lower grade levels. Luckily, I think it is something that will get easier with practice and experience!