Practice Brief 46 -- Topics: Implementation Instruction

How to define meaningful daily learning objectives for science investigations

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Why It Matters To You
  • Teachers should have the authority to design instruction by involving students in developing daily objectives.
  • District Staff & PD Providers should help teachers learn how to define and sequence 3D learning performances across the units they teach that culminate in students understanding performance expectation bundles.
  • School Leaders should learn how to see and support science instruction that engages students in making sense of phenomena and should consider how daily learning objectives might be different in a 3D instruction classroom.

What Is The Issue?

Many schools require teachers to post the day’s learning target, objective, or standard on the board. However, displaying the target concept to be learned—the disciplinary core idea that is the focus of instruction—“gives away” what students should actually be figuring out as they make sense of phenomena by engaging in the science and engineering practices. Many teachers face a dilemma when they try to meet their administrator’s requirements. It is important for teachers and administrators to come to consensus around developing and using objectives that are consistent with 3D learning.

Authors:

WILLIAM R. PENUEL, MICHAEL NOVAK, TARA MCGILL, KATIE VAN HORNE & BRIAN J. REISER | MARCH 2017


Reflection Questions

  • Teachers: What shifts might be needed in your teaching for you to develop learning objectives focused on student questions?
  • Building Administrators: How can you support student-driven learning goals and investigation while learning about classroom learning objectives?
  • District Leaders: How do your district’s frameworks for observing teachers support or interfere with 3D science teaching and learning?

Things to Consider

Attending to Equity

Recommended Actions You Can Take



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This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Award #1920249 (previously through Awards #1238253 and #1854059). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.