Some Ideas about Teaching

Teaching Objectives and Learning Outcomes

I have always tried to get staff to distinguish between teaching objectives and learning outcomes.

The Teaching Objectives are what you, as a teacher, are trying to achieve.
There is some benefit, I suppose, in couching these in Ofsted-speak.
They will cover such things as 'Develop understanding of long-term causation (WWI)'/ 'Reliability of a source'/ 'Facts of the Cuban Missiles Crisis'.

The Learning Outcomes are:
- FOR YOU the evidence that they have appropriated the skills/content you intended (i.e. as evaluated by your plenary)
- FOR THE PUPILS the concrete things that they are going to learn how to do.
These should be couched in 'pupil-speak' and written on the whiteboard.
They are best preceded by the phrase: 'By the end of the lesson you will be able to...'
and will cover such things as 'identify FOUR long-term causes of World War I', 'explain TWO ways an historian can analyse the reliability of a source', 'relate the [TEN] key events of the Cuban Missiles Crisis'.
THIS is what you should write on your 'lesson objectives' boards (though at Greenfield we call the 'Learning Outcomes' boards).

The Greenfield generic Lesson Plan requires the teacher to identify BOTH the Teaching Objectives and the Learning Outcomes.

It is a good way to teach because it makes the teacher:
1. think about what it is he wishes to teach
2. express it in child-speak
3. test whether he was successful in a plenary.

Posted on: Sep 29 2005, 10:33 PM