Writing Objections and Looking Ahead at What is to Come!

         What a busy week this week! In AEE 412, we talked about learning objectives and introduced the idea of group teaching techniques. I enjoyed this week because learning objectives are very important. Not only do they provide guidance for unit plans, they give lesson plans meaning and purpose. Without learning objectives, what would be the point of a lesson? On both Monday and Friday of class this week, we had several opportunities to practice writing our own learning objectives and were given feedback. This was a blessing because it will be very helpful as I continue to write lesson plans.

         I learned the three parts of a well written learning objective this week: the performance, criterion, and condition. The performance component of a learning objective is what should be achieved, what the students should be able to do. Another part of a well written learning objective is the criterion. This includes the level of achievement or how well the behavior should be performed. The last part of a well written learning objective is the condition, the circumstances under which the behavior will be achieved. When practicing writing objectives, I struggled with the conditions component. We were provided readings and practice worksheets in class throughout the week and I found these very helpful.

           As I look ahead to next week, we will focus on group teaching techniques and transition into effective questioning during instruction. From Newcomb’s reading on group teaching techniques, I learned that there are seven different group teaching techniques: lecture, discussion, demonstration, field trip, role playing, resource people, and cooperative learning. Of these seven, I am least familiar with demonstration, resource people, and cooperative learning. I am most familiar with lecture because I have sat through plenty of them. One question I have regarding lectures is how do you make them engaging and keep student interest? I definitely do not want to talk at my students while I student teach and often worry about that.

          Also in the upcoming week, we will focus on effective questioning during instruction. I am very excited to learn how to accomplish this and put it to use in my classroom. I really like the idea of using thought provoking questions during instruction and encouraging students to think, rather than providing them with answers. I have witnessed this during several of my observations at Elizabethtown and also at an IEP observation at CPI. As the Dyer article on effective questioning states, questions are important to assess student comprehension level, establish relationships between concepts, develop students’ thinking skills, and create student interest and motivation.

          Dyer also explained the difference between lower level and higher level questions. I am beginning to pick up on the way my professors and teachers I observe differentiate between the two. Lower level questions are used to determine student comprehension and review or summarize content. Higher level questions encourage deeper thinking, encourage discussions, and allow students to solve problems. According to the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Extensions, open ended questions are questions that do not provide response questions while closed questions do provide response choices I am interested to see how I can incorporate each of these into my lessons and when each type is most appropriate.

         Looking back on the week and anticipating what is to come in the next week have me more excited than before! I feel like we are really digging into effective instruction and learning more details to consider in the planning and preparation process. Everything is finally starting to come together and I am picking up how topics are related and intertwined through my core ag ed classes. I am learning new concepts and skills, practicing them, and putting them to use in my unit and lesson plans. I am anxious to learn more about generating and using effective questions because I know these will work wonders in my future classroom!

When Should I Use Open-Ended Questions?. (2004). University of Wisconsin  Cooperative Extension. Retrieved September 27, 2014, from http://www.uwex.edu/ces/tobaccoeval/resources/surveyquestionstype.html