PTS Name: Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students
Element: Establishing and articulating goals for student learning
Indicators
As teachers develop, they may ask, “How do I…” or “Why do I…”:
- Establish short-term and long-term goals for student learning?
- Ensure that each instructional activity is related to learning goals?
- Build on the strengths, interests, and needs of all students to establish high expectations for learning?
- Establish learning goals that address all students’ language, experience, and home and
school expectations?
- Design instructional activities so that all students participate in setting and achieving learning goals?
- Ensure that goals for student learning promote critical thinking and problem solving?
Descriptions
Examples may include, but are not limited to:
- Planning a unit of study by beginning with the end in mind: creating the final assessment (i.e., what the students should know and be able to do), then working backwards to establish specific goals for each lesson, and finally designing lessons to meet those outcomes [backwards planning]
- Identifying clearly the learning objective at the start of a lesson so students know what they should know and be able to do by the close of the lesson
- Setting and communicating several short-term benchmark goals that lead to reaching a long-term goal
- Working with students at the beginning of a unit to design a rubric that will measure student’s mastery of the unit concepts
- Ensuring that all lessons and units require all students to develop and use higher order thinking
Problems of Practice
Challenges with this element frequently include:
- Having the same academic goals for all students despite their varying academic strengths
and weaknesses
- Creating student learning goals that are set by the teacher while students and others are unaware of them and how to achieve them
- Designing lesson plans and units of instruction with an emphasis on students being engaged and having fun, however, upon closer look they are unrelated to learning goals