Module #1, Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

Setting Objectives:

Our school administrator at the school I work is just now starting his second year as an administrator.
The school is a different place, more organized and focused. One of the mandated he gave to teachers
this year was to list their objectives for the subject they are teaching on the white board. I am not
teaching I am just an aide, and I can sense when the teacher gets self-righteous and act like the difficult
children they have difficulty with, yet they have reluctantly jotted down We will statements to
represent the class objective for the subjects being taught. This is good modeling, and I can see the
benefits.

I find it interesting that teachers often act in the same manner as their students when given a task they
do not like or are asked to structure their class in a particular way. The goal is to do what is best for the
learning of the student and to be self-righteous seems counter institutive to the learning environment.
On page 17 of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the authors make this quote,
When teachers communicate objectives for students learning, students can see more easily the
connections between what they are doing in class and what that are supposed to learn (Pitler, Hubbell,
& Kuhn, 2012).

Setting objective is like laying down the road map to where the teacher wants to bring the learning. If
the students are like me, this is a difficult process to wrap their minds around without having a visual.
Beyond the teacher writing objectives on the white board, students can learn to break down the
objectives for the task they are assigned. Ideally, this break down will provide the student with a visual
guideline to help lead them successfully to the finished product.

Feedback:

Giving effective feedback is one of the most powerful and positive things a teacher can do for student
learning (Brookhart & Nitko, 2015, p154). Having to wait and find out how you are doing is sometimes a
stress inducing process. If there is a desire to learn and the teacher is not effectively giving a student
timely feedback on the work they are doing, the window for formative assessment is lost. The student is
left not knowing their progress until it is too late and they become frustrated and disengaged. Feedback
needs to be not just timely but able to show how improvement needs to happen.

Tool #1 Google Docs Template:

I must confess I am technically a Millennial but have the computer savvy skills of a World War II vet. If I
can follow directions and create what I wanted, I am a happy camper. As an aide, I am often asked by
students to offer help on technology issues which I will defer to the closest ten-year-old who is already
producing the task assigned. If I can learn how it operates then the children can just as easily.

Keeping ideas organized for writing and research is a difficult task for many of the students I work with.
They have writing journals, but their handwriting is terrible leading to confusion on what they have
written down. The use of a template to organize thoughts would be handy. I made my own, and it was
not difficult. I do not have a class to teach but I know the application of the KWL format would be
versatile across many subjects especially with research based projects and reading logs. From what I
remember from previous years projects I would employ the KWL format for reading logs. It could be a
progressive document that the children fill out as they read each chapter to show progress.

As I formatted my template through Google Docs, I found it to be extremely user-friendly.

I get very frustrated when I am

following directions that are overly complicated and has too many steps; this was not the case. The
usability was similar to Word, which I am familiar with. It would not be any more difficult to have
created this template in Word, but I like that with Google Docs there is an option for multiple students
to be able to simultaneously edit. This would a great option for pairing stronger students with weaker
ones in a cooperative learning setting.

I give it

Tool #2 ExploreLearning:

As I have wandered the various classrooms through my tenure as an aide, I have noticed a pattern in the
areas that every class struggles with. In math, it is notoriously children having difficulty with their
multiplication facts. The way classes are structured at my school it seems they never have the
opportunity to sit and work on the troubled areas very long, it is moving from one standard to the other
without mastery. I am assigned to work with children that often have a learning disability and can slow
down the process, so we do achieve mastery, the only problem is they must listen to my tutelage, and
that is not always as enjoyable for them as I think it should be (Im a pretty entertaining guy).

We do have access to the IXL program, but most students find this to be very boring. My exploration of
the ExploreLearning tool may have the balance I am looking for.

The first aspect I liked was it already has your state's standards built in
Another great option is that the learning applications (gizmos) can be customized by the teacher.

There is a very limited number of gizmos if you are just using the free trial option. Not so great.
I was not impressed with the maturity level the games were created. I was looking for something that
would appeal to a 6-8th-grade math group, and the animation and music were more appropriate for a
4th-grade class. What I did consider is that for some of my students that are in special education classes
would not have a problem with the format. It would be perfect for them. A gen ed. class might not be so
thrilled.

Once a student progresses further into the games, it does get more challenging, but it offers a
comprehensive tutorial. Each concept is explained in a very simple and understandable way.

I found this tool to offer the student a fun way to engage, be taught, and have feedback give for each
step of the learning process.

I give it

References:
Brookhart & Nitko, (2015). Educational assessment of students. New Jersey:
Pearson.

Pitler, Hubbell, & Kuhn, (2012). Using technology with classroom instruction
that works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development.