Student goals are what you want students to achieve in your classroom. I believe that if the students have an input on what their goals should be they will be more meaningful and take ownership of those goals. I also think there can be two sets of goals in your classroom, just like we have in ours here. One is the teacher's list for their students and the other is a list that the students come up with together. I also learned yesterday that when you look at student actions for each goal is where you start to see these goals overlap and relate to eachother.
We also touched on learning theory and how we used to think that students were empty vessels when they came to school (which they never really were). We can still ask them questions and have conversations with them because they will have an answer even if it is not right. If their answers or comments are not right then continue to ask more questions to get them to the correct understanding. All students come into school having different background knowledge. Knowing our students background knowledge will have an influence on the type of instruction we give and what content to teach.
Non-verbal strategies can send a big message to students. Things like eye contact and walking around the room are examples of non-verbal strategies. Another that is important is giving time after you ask a question for students to think about what you said to construct an answer. Students need time to process what was just said so giving a good amount of wait time is good.
Questioning strategies we have seen used a lot in this class. By asking questions you are getting students to think critically (which is part of a goal we have) and possibly facilitating them to reflect (which is going towards another goal). How you phrase questions is important. If you realize no one is responding after you have waited awhile you should think of a way to rephrase that question. Not all questions will make sense to all students so you need to be prepared to ask them in more ways than one.
Just in this last class we had we intertwined about four of these standards in 30 minutes. I didn't realize until he started pointing out, well we just talked about this standard and this standard that it started to make more sense to me how these relate. As we continue I hope that he will keep notifying us when we just talked about a certain standard until I can start picking that up on my own.
I'm going to pose some questions to help you continue to deepen your thinking.
ReplyDeleteWhy are questions an effective way to "lead" students' thinking?
What problems might you run into having elementary students create their own list of goals?
Imagine a teacher who uses great wait time, but students still don't answer. What else might be causing the students to not answer?
I have and will continue to make explicit statements in most every class. However, as we get deeper into the semester, our discussions about good teaching should become so interwoven that we touch on most all standards every day. I strongly suggest reflecting after each class on each standard to think about how we touched on it that day.