Purposeful Classroom
Purposeful Classroom
Purposeful Classroom
Establishing Purpose
Establishing the purpose of a lesson, often through a written objective, is a common educational practice. From the time teachers get their professional licensure, they are encouraged to consider what their students will know and be able to do. An established purpose alerts learners to important information and garners their attention while helping teachers decide how best to use their instructional time. Consider the following content purpose statement: To identify the steps in the life cycle of a frog After reading that statement, do you know what the teacher wants her students to learn? Could you identify instructional materials or plan instructional events that would help guide students' understanding? Could you identify an assessment that would reveal which students had mastered this information? Hopefully, your answer to each of these questions is "yes." While we can improve the quality of the statement above, perhaps by increasing relevance or focusing on the linguistic demands of the lesson (elements that will be discussed further in this book), our point is that a clearly established purpose drives instruction. We don't ask students to infer the purpose; we clearly state it.
Purpose = Expectations
Establishing a clear purpose for learning content serves as a priming mechanism for new learning and results in increased student understanding of the content (Gagn & Briggs, 1974; Hunter, 1976; Mager, 1962). Simply put, when students understand the purpose of a lesson, they learn more (Fraser, Walberg, Welch, & Hattie, 1987).
In stating a purpose, we make our expectations for learning clear. When teachers have high expectations for students, communicate those expectations, and provide the support necessary to achieve them, student performance soars; conversely, when teachers have low expectations and communicate this either verbally or nonverbally, student achievement suffers (Marzano, 2011). Evidence from high-poverty schools in London, England, suggests that high expectations can also help reduce delinquency and behavioral disturbances (Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, Ouston, & Smith, 1979). We also know that teachers' low expectations for students from traditionally underperforming groups contribute to the achievement gap (van den Bergh, Denessen, Hornstra, Voeten, & Holland, 2010). One of the ways teachers can measure high expectations is by analyzing whether the stated purpose for learning content matches the grade level being taught. A simple review of the purpose statement will reveal lessons that are below grade level and thus not designed to ensure that students reach high expectations. After all, excellent teaching of 4th grade standards to 6th grade students will result, at best, in a group of 7th graders performing at the 5th grade level. That's not to say that a teacher would never provide students with some developmental instructionclosing knowledge and skills gaps is important, and can be accomplished during guided instruction. But lessons that are provided to the whole class, as well as the productive group work that students do collaboratively, should be aligned to grade-level expectations.
However, it has been revised over time with additional words for added clarity. For example, Haughey (2010) suggests the following: S - Specific, significant, stretching M - Measurable, meaningful, motivational A - Agreed-upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented R - Realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented T - Time-based, timely, tangible, trackable As we will discuss in greater detail in Chapter 2, understanding the components of an effective objective is important in a teacher's planning process, whereas the purpose has to be understood by students such that they can explain it in their own words and grasp its relevance. In other words, teachers who painstakingly write objectives that meet the SMART criteria should do so for themselves and their own understanding of the lesson. An objective probably won't work as a purpose statement, as students are likely to get lost in the details. Students want to know what they are going to learn and how they will be expected to demonstrate their understanding. Consider the following objective for a biology class designed to meet the SMART criteria: By the end of the period, students will describe the role of DNA in the creation of proteins by summarizing the process in writing. This objective is useful for teachers. It has a time component and mentions specific content and a measurable outcome. But even though it meets the SMART criteria, we would argue that it is not very useful for students. First, while time limits are important in teaching, we're not convinced that they are necessary for a purpose statement. Second, when the purpose statement includes a task, students pay more attention to the task rather than to what they are expected to learn. For us, a better content purpose statement, based on the objective that the teacher has written, would read as follows: Explain the role of DNA in the creation of proteins. In this case, students are immediately alerted to what they are expected to learn. They assume that the teacher will structure class time to ensure that they do, in fact, learn this and that they will be held accountable for doing so. Thus, the purpose statement is focusing for students, while not being so narrow as to limit their understanding.
The first problem with this statement is that the content described is taught and learned over several days, if not weeks. Our experience suggests that a purpose statement should focus on what can be accomplished today, rather than over several days. As it stands, this standard posing as a purpose statement is likely to be seen as wallpaper by students because it will be posted for so long. Second, there are too many ideas wrapped up in the statement. What should the students focus on? What, specifically, are they supposed to learn, and why? Standards are meant to be unpacked and unwrapped, not simply posted on the wall (Ainsworth, 2003; Jackson, 2009). All kinds of excellent processes have been developed, such as Understanding by Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), to ensure both that teacher lessons are based on standards and that students know what is expected of them. Many states are now adopting the Common Core State Standards, which will provide a new opportunity for teachers to focus on content and what they want students to learn. Again, simply posting one of the common core standards will not focus students on what they need to learn now.
There is a purpose to each of these steps, and if the purpose is not identified, novices are likely to be confused and misinformed. The science teacher with whom we spoke may have meant that purpose statements for inquiry-based lessons should be focused on content rather than process, as in the following example: Identify outliers in data sets. This statement provides students with information about what they should learn as they determine the validity of given data points. In this case, students are learning how to review their data sets before analyzing data to determine if any of the data points were entered incorrectly. Over time, they will learn about outliers and why some researchers remove them. Understanding the role of outliers is part of the inquiry and research process and one that most students need to be taught. Or perhaps the science teacher meant that the purpose should be established at the outset of a lesson. One of the most common misconceptions about establishing purpose is that it has to be done as soon as students enter the room. This is simply not true. We believe that students need to understand the purpose of the lesson at some point during the course of it, but not necessarily at the very beginning. For example, when we read informational texts to our students, we don't always establish the purpose in advance of the reading. Often, we read parts of the text, invite students to talk with group members, draw connections between the text and their experiences, and then debate the information presented before revealing the purpose behind what we're doing. One of our colleagues, a physics teacher, rarely reveals the purpose in advance of a lab because she wants
students to first have experiences that will then make the purpose statement relevant. In many cases, students hypothesize the purpose, asking their physics teacher about it, as they complete the lab.
none stands completely apart from the others. Our field's expertise is in the cognitive/ behavioral realm. Like the friend in the art museum, we can interpret what we observe for our science colleagues. And one of the most influential theories of cognition is the gradual release of responsibility.
Source: From Better Learning Through Structured Teaching (p. 4), by D. Fisher and N. Frey, 2008, Alexandria,
topic, they need time with fellow learners to clarify and consolidate their knowledge. In some cases, such collaboration also exposes what they don't yet know. The opportunity to make mistakes and have the time and support to correct them can lead to a more solid understandinga concept known as productive failure (Kapur, 2008). Purpose plays a role in peer learning in that students have an expectation of what they are supposed to do. Let's return to Ms. Levinson's class. She sets the purpose again, explaining that students will work in small groups to sort large versions of the shapes: "Remember, this is a time when you get a chance to tell each other why you know a shape is a triangle or a square." As the students place the shapes into large plastic buckets, they use a language frame to extend their academic language in mathematics. Each table has a chart that says, "I know it is a ________ because ________." Ms. Levinson sits with each small group, providing guided instruction when the students are not able to resolve problems on their own.
Indicators of Success
Figure 1.2 contains a rubric that can be used to identify areas of strength and need in terms of establishing purpose. As a note of caution, using a rubric such as this one to evaluate teacher performance is probably not very helpful and could result in hurt feelings and conflict. Instead, we suggest that the rubric be used as a needs assessment following a conversation about quality. When teachers, coaches, and administrators agree on quality, amazing conversations can be held. Without agreements about quality, even agreements that grow and develop over time, conversations can become defensive and accusatory. We strongly suggest taking the time to talk about quality and to reach agreements about quality before providing one another with feedback. We believe that all of the indicators on this rubric are important considerations, and have developed descriptors for each of them. We'd like to say that we consistently teach at the "4" level, but that would not be true; although we aim for a 4 each time we teach, we don't always reach our goal. The rubric helps us to reflect on our teaching and to identify areas of strength and need. For example, Nancy knows that she is very strong in the area of linking lessons to a larger theme, problem, project, or question. When colleagues need help in this area, they often seek her out for assistance. Doug is strong at developing content and language components for each lesson. He likes to think about the linguistic demands of the lesson and how to help students master content. As
such, he is often asked about the linguistic demands of a lesson and how to develop the language component of the purpose statement.
Conclusion
All of the indicators on the rubric in Figure 1.2 are further described and defined in the chapters that follow. They are presented in the same order as in the rubric, but that's not to say that you have to read them in any particular order. If you need, for example, immediate information about meaningful experiences that are linked to purpose, skip to Chapter 6 and find out more. If you want to know why we think it is critical that students can explain the purpose in their own words and why the purpose should have relevance for students, jump to Chapters 3 and 4. We do hope that you'll eventually read the whole book, as it contains our best thinking about this very important aspect of teaching and learningestablishing purpose. As author W. Clement Stone said, "Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement."
Indicators The established purpose focuses on student learning, rather than an activity, assignment, or task.
Phase 2 Phase 1Minimal Approaching The established purpose The established The established The established requires students to use purpose is linked to a purpose mostly purpose fails to link critical and creative theme, problem, contains statements the lesson's thinking to acquire project, or question, about activities, classroom work to information, resolve a but the lesson's work is assignments, or tasks, any theme, problem, problem, apply a skill, or primarily on an with minimal linkage project, or question. evaluate a process. The isolated activity, to a theme, problem, Instead, an agenda lesson's work is clearly assignment, or task, project, or question. of isolated activities, linked to a theme, rather than an enduring The work is primarily assignments, or problem, project, or understanding. reproductive in tasks is listed. question the class is nature. investigating. The established purpose The established The established The statement is not contains statements about purpose contains purpose omits either grade- or coursegrade- or coursecontent and language the content or appropriate. The appropriate content as demand components language component. statement is vague well as language demands that are grade- or It is grade- or and does not provide that can be learned and course-appropriate, but content-appropriate, students with a clear accomplished today. are too broad and but is too broad and sense of what is require several lessons requires several expected and what is to learn. lessons to to be learned. accomplish. Randomly selected Randomly selected Randomly selected The statements of students can explain the students can restate the students can restate randomly selected stated purposes of the purpose and report how the relevance students emphasize lesson and how they are the purpose is related established by the compliance, rather linked to a theme, to a theme, problem, teacher, but do not than a link to a problem, project, or project, or question. see connections with theme, problem, question. The student The students may a theme, problem, project, or question. Phase 4Exemplary Phase 3Proficient
recognizes the relevance recognize some of the purpose beyond the relevance to their own classroom or for learning's life or technology. sake as well as how information can be found, used, created, or shared. Randomly selected Randomly selected students can explain or students can accurately demonstrate what they are restate the purpose of learning in their own the lesson using their words and what is teacher's words. expected of them for the lesson. The established purpose requires students to actively construct meaning through interaction with the teacher, the content materials, and each other. Students receive feedback about the task, the processing of the task, self-regulation, and about the self as person. The established purpose requires interaction with the teacher, content materials, and each other, but the teacher, rather than the students, mostly develops the meaning. The feedback students receive focuses mainly on the task with some information about the process used. The teacher can explain how he or she checks for understanding during and after the lesson. The results of the lesson's work are used to make instructional decisions about the next lesson.
The teacher designs meaningful experiences and outcomes aligned with the established purpose.
The teacher has a plan for determining when the established purpose has been met.
The teacher can explain a system to check for understanding during and after the lesson and how this information is used to inform instructional decisions within the current lesson and the lessons that follow. The format of the lesson is designed to allow the teacher to respond to students' misconceptions or partial understandings.
project, or question. They are not able to They are tentative or link their learning to unsure of the usefulness beyond usefulness of the the classroom. learning beyond the classroom. Randomly selected Randomly selected students can restate students are unable portions of the to correctly state the purpose of the lesson. purpose of the These partial lesson. explanations reflect the teacher's wording more than their own. The established The established purpose requires purpose focuses on a some interaction, but one-way is mostly confined to transmission model reproduction and of instruction, with recall of content. little or no Students may not see interaction with the task as teacher, content, or meaningful and each. Students receive feedback that receive little timely is not specific and and specific only focused on the feedback other than task. whether or not they completed the task correctly. The teacher checks The tasks are for understanding at graded, but do not the end of the lesson drive instruction. only. He or she can Instead, the explain how these emphasis is on task results are used to completion, rather make instructional than on gauging decisions about the student learning to next lesson. design the next lesson.
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