Learning Objectives with Student Collaboration

After reading previous posts about using learning objectives in class, Ms. +Kathy Thorburn thought of a great example of integrating her objectives with technology. For the freshman Biology classes, the Biology PLT set forth learning objectives for the course and list these objectives on all of their assignments. The students see them regularly so that they’re able to understand what they’re working on.

For a particular lesson on fitness and energy, the learning objective is: Explain how varying activity level and diet affects an individual’s level of fitness. In order to get the kids thinking of this topic on a personal level, Ms. Thorburn asked the students to use Choose MyPlate to track their diet for a day as well as log their activity level for a week.

Once the students used this engaging website, they brought their information to class to work together in cooperative groups. In these groups, the students were charged with analyzing the results of their work. They looked at everyone’s results and answered a series of questions reflecting on the different results. After analyzing their information, Ms. Thorburn asked them to create a Baiboard presentation. Ms. Thorburn chose to use Baiboard for the project so that the students could collaborate simultaneously, but also because Baiboard only allowed them 10 slides and therefore, the students had to be deliberate and concise with their presentation. When the groups finished their work, they made brief presentations to the class.

Ms. Thorburn noted that during the lesson, the students were highly engaged and had very positive and reflective conversations. She believes that the combination of personally interesting material and use of technology elevated the lesson to a level that it wouldn’t have been in the past. It was also a great way for the students to refer back to their learning objective and applying it to their own lives.

Pretty cool, right?

This is the third post of a series about using learning objectives in the classroom. Next week’s post will feature how to use +Schoology as another effective way of communicating student progress of learning objectives.

Do you effectively use learning objectives in your classroom?

Please share your great ideas in the comments section below so

we can continue to learn from each other!

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