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Northwest Regional Professional Development Program, in accordance with the Nevada Revised Statutes, is committed to building regional partnerships which provide equitable access for teachers and administrators to support and sustain professional and student learning. |
Northwest RPDP will work in collaboration with districts, the Nevada Department of Education, and institutions of higher education to provide high quality research-based learning opportunities, aligned with the Nevada Professional Development Standards and content standards adopted by the State of Nevada to: offer diverse professional learning opportunities centered around current research on effective instruction for student learnin; improve and increase communication among the Northwest RPDP region members concerning professional learning for teachers and administrators; improve and increase communication among the Northwestern, Southern and Northeastern Nevada RPDPs; use technology to build capacity among the partnerships. |
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Engaging Students with Standards & Lesson Objectives, K-12
A topic explored in many NWRPDP Workshops is how to effectively engage K-12 students in classroom standards and objectives. To quote Robert Marzano's A Handbook for Instruction that Works, "Students learn most efficiently when they know the goals of a specific lesson or learning activity. This makes intuitive sense. If students are aware of an intended outcome, they know what to focus on. When setting objectives, the teacher simply gives students a target for their learning."
Simply saying, "Today we are learning about this topic" is not enough. Writing your objective on the board is not enough. The key to effectively using objectives during instruction is to engage students (repeatedly) by having them revisit the lesson's objectives. Our workshops explore ways to do this, and they challenge our participants to adapt others' engagement techniques to work for them.
Over the years, we have observed many effective variations of engaging students in classroom learning objectives. On this page, we share some basic techniques and challenge you to adapt one (or all) to work in your classroom. |
Our Suggested PLC Plan for this Important Topic:
The techniques shared below work very well in K-12 classrooms, but teachers really need to try each of these strategies multiple times in order to begin using them effectively. In addition, teachers need to be encouraged to adapt the techniques, exploring variations that would help them find ways to adapt the basic ideas shared below to work for their student population.
In short, these are not "cookie cutter" techniques designed to give teachers the sure-fire way to quickly become better at engaging students in objective-based learning; instead, these are techniques that need to be explored over a long period of time, with multiple opportunities for teachers to reflect in small groups on the way they have used them to improve student learning.
We at NWRPDP recommend that a PLC exploring this topic should spend a minimum of ten weeks working with this research-based strategy. Once a week, each PLC member should report to the group on how he/she developed and used one of the techniques below; during PLC meetings, each member should share how they presented their objectives, how they attempted to engage their learners in them, and how they might consider revising the technique to work better next time. PLC members should openly provide feedback to one another as techniques are shared using the following four criteria, which are adapted from McTighe and Wiggins' Understanding by Design:
- The objectives are posted where students can easily see and refer to them
- The objectives are written in language the students can understand
- The objectives are written to be focused, but not limiting
- The objectives are used by students and teacher throughout the lesson to monitor progress towards learning
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ØØWe strongly recommend that teachers choose three techniques below and try (then revise) each of them three times in order to thoroughly explore ways to adapt the technique.ØØ
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Techniques for Engaging Students in Classroom Objectives: I Can... Objectives |
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"I Can..." Objectives are a technique of presenting objectives to students in the form of declarative statements. Before, during, and after learning, students rank their ability to successfully do what the "I Can..." asks of them.
When used very well, "I Can..". statements showcase verbs that are aligned to a desired level of Bloom's Taxonomy, and they focus students on the academic vocabulary contained in the "I Can..." statements.
"I Can..." objectives we challenge our teachers with: |
- I can use essential understandings to help my students learn better.
- I can make essential understandings using three different techniques.
- I can explain and apply the criteria for using essential understandings effectively.
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Teacher Learning about "I Can..." Objectives
learn the basics (and beyond!) about I Cans... using these resources |
Objective-based Tools for Student Engagement
having the "I Can..." is not enough; students must be engaged in it! |
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Interesting "I Can..." Approaches
discuss these teachers' use of "I Cans..." with your learning team |
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Techniques for Engaging Students in Classroom Objectives: Rainbow Essential Questions |
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Rainbow Essential Questions are a set of questions presented to students before, during, and after learning; the students' goal is to formulate thoughtful responses to the set of questions, and to revise their responses as they continue to learn about a topic of study.
A complete set of Rainbow Essential Questions has three question types in it: connecting, processing, and transforming. PLCs can learn about these question types using the resources below.
Rainbow Questions we challenge our teachers with: |
- How aware of your teaching objectives should your students be? (our connecting question)
- Just making them visible is not enough! What are four strategies a teacher might use to more effectively engage students in classroom objectives? (our processing question)
- How aware of your classroom objectives will your students be tomorrow? (our transforming question)
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Teacher Learning about Rainbow Questions
learn the basics (and beyond!) about rainbows using these resources |
Objective-based Tools for Student Engagement
having rainbow questions is a start; students must be engaged in them! |
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Interesting Rainbow Question Approaches
discuss these teachers' use of Rainbow Questions with your PLC |
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Techniques for Engaging Students in Classroom Objectives: Honeycomb Essential Questions |
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Honeycomb Questions are a technique we share from McTighe and Wiggins' Understanding by Design. This book is a required text for teachers enrolled in the NWRPDP's SLF Program.
Honeycomb Questions are created using a very specific worksheet, which helps them design big-idea questions that require different thinking strategies. Teachers select their best questions from the worksheet and design their instruction to help students answer the question(s) they have chosen.
Four Honeycomb Questions we challenge our teachers with: |
- What would it feel like to go to a professional development where you were completely unaware of what you were supposed to learn? (Empathy question)
- Which teachers from your past really made you understand why their content was important to learn? (Perspective question)
- What are essential questions, and how does a teacher construct ones that encourage deeper levels of thinking? (Explanation & Application questions)
- Regarding your teaching, what “positives” and “considerations for change” has essential questions made you think about? (Self-knowledge question)
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Teacher Learning about Honeycomb Questions
learn the basics (and beyond!) about honeycombs... our resources |
Objective-based Tools for Student Engagement
having honeycomb questions is a start; engage students with them! |
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Interesting Honeycomb Question Approaches
discuss these teachers' use of honeycombs with your learning team |
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Techniques for Engaging Students in Classroom Objectives: Hybrid Techniques |
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One of the most important things we ask our workshop and PLC participants to do is adapt the techniques we share. We believe that the most effective classroom strategies come from the adaptations that teachers make to ideas they learn during professional development experiences. Teachers who take a strategy, try it with students, discuss its implementation with colleagues, and continually revise the technique to work with different students and topics--those are the teachers who learn the most during professional development.
Some Past Hybrid Technqiues we challenge our teachers with: |
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