As a student, walking into a classroom and seeing a learning outcome posted on the board was something that I became immune to during my school years. Probably beginning in middle school, I'd say it was standard fare. But I'm not going to pretend that I got anything out of them. I know that the studies show that posting expected outcomes helps students understand what they should be learning. I get the feeling though that my teachers, like many described in this blog, were writing the learning outcomes on the board simply because they were told to by their supervisor. They never referenced them, nor made us particularly aware of them. We just saw them up there and that was that.
I understand how writing an understandable learning outcome can be beneficial to students, but in order for the impact to be seen, students have to understand not only what they say, but why they are there. When I get into a classroom, I have a feeling that learning outcomes are going to be a mandatory part of my lesson and I can handle that and definetly use them to my and the students benefit, but I'm not on board with writing them for the sake of writing them. When I have a classroom of my own, the learning outcome in going to be part of the lesson or it wont be used at all (unless they want to fire me, in which case my stance on posting learning outcomes will likely become less negative very quickly!)
Purrra
Thats a great point that I wish the article would have brought up. Alot of teachers dont really care about the concept of posting objectives on the board before class they just know that they will get in trouble if they dont do it which isnt benefitting anyone. The article clearly states that if the student does not understand the goal for the class then they have no chance at achieving it. Great point.
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