One of my college professors always shared with her students that “effective teaching depends on how clearly the student understands what they are supposed to learn”. Just this past school year my school district faced corrective actions under the No Child Left Behind Act for not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress for the 3rd consecutive year. So we had an assistance team from D.P.I. come into the schools to make sure that our instruction was aligned with and fully implemented the N.C. Standard Course of Study. Objectives written clearly on the board became very important in job security ☺. I have only been teaching for 3 years and could not believe the state was coming into schools to check objectives on the board. I was taught in college to have the objectives written on the board for every lesson. So when the word came down to us (classroom teachers) I was thinking, what is wrong with North Carolina? They are sending a team to check objectives on the board? I thought this state was one of the leaders in education in the U.S. Was leaving Louisiana for North Carolina the right thing to do? All kinds of questions ran through my head. Then I found out after they had visited some schools before reaching mine and that some teachers were not putting objectives on the board and not teaching the standard the course of study for their grade level. If I am not mistaken, the state changes the standard course of study every 4 or 5 years. There were some educators who didn’t want to change with it and liked to teach what they have been teaching for years.
Sharing the objectives makes is easier to teach in my opinion. I like to use KWL charts when teaching. Therefore I can know what my students knows before I teach the lesson, what they want to know, and what they have learned after I have completed the lesson. It makes the learning fun and engages the students. The assigned articles were helpful and refreshing with writing objectives. I bookmarked the helpful hundred and will share them with my colleagues once school starts next month. I am also going to share the assigned articles for this week. Hopefully some of them will get the same feeling I had after reading them.
2 comments:
Just this spring, I filled in at a DPI curriculum and instruction meeting for our district.
Being new to NC, it has been interesting learning the DPI system. It was enlightening to just be in the room visiting with district leaders from across the state. I learned much and walked away with a better feeling about the bureaucracy of NC DPI.
The last portion of our meeting was a brainstorming session with a consulting group that is working to revise our state assistance teams. I am not sure when the improvements will be put in place but many good ideas were bounced around the room.
I’ve heard some justifiable reasons for not writing objectives on the board. However, I feel like that writing the objectives not only lets the student know what they are supposed to learn, but also serves to keep the teacher focused as well. Our school had problems with teachers that did not want to change with the NC standard course of study and it really showed on our math scores.
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