Objectives: Don’t forget the reason for teaching this lesson!

Designing a better Lesson Plan

Let’s look back really quickly and see where we have come from so far. In the first post of this lesson planning for homeschoolers series, we introduced the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason and took a first look at a basic lesson plan outline. In part two, we looked at why we should engage in deliberate lesson planning and dived into the somewhat controversial topic of academic standards. Our next step in building an effective and usable lesson plan is to look at our actual objectives, the reason we will deliver this lesson to our youngsters.

Objectives: Why?

Kids are great, aren’t they? But when you have 6 of them, the constant stream of ‘why’ gets…old. Yet, it is the most important question, isn’t it? We started this series with ‘Why lesson plan’, and we added ‘Why should we use academic standards?’ Now we ask ‘Why do we need to think of objectives?’

Well, why indeed? There are reasons to not deliberately noodle out objectives:

1. I am following a standardized curriculum. Somebody else did it for me.
2. My kids are young! I just want them to absorb as much as they can, ‘objectives’ come later.
3. This is taking a lot of my extra time. And did I mention I don’t have any extra time?

Give me a chance to encourage you to think about, if not actually sit down and write down, your objectives for your child. If you are designing your own curriculum from scratch, then I probably don’t need to convince you to give some thought to your unit lesson plan objectives. You are building an educational house from scratch and you need to know where are you going just to get started! It is the other reasons that need a minute to address.

If you are using a standardized curriculum, yes – somebody else probably put some thought into their objectives for your child. Most of the lessons probably even state those lessons right up front. Oh goody! Check and pass! … Slow your role shipmate. This is your child, not theirs. You know what your child needs and where you, as their homeschooling educator, want to take them.

I will give you my example:

My children are bilingual, they were born in Japan and spent the first 7 years of their life in Japan. Their first language is Japanese, with English as a second language. So when I look at the objectives provided in math or science, my eye is drawn to the objectives (or lack of them) that deal directly with language and vocabulary. When I don’t see them, I add them. Guess what? This doesn’t have to take any time! Most of the time I add in language and vocabulary objectives ‘on the fly’, (Spoiler: I don’t write down EVERY lesson plan I deliver!)

Not only are they bilingual, but they are also bi-cultural. We travel back and forth between Alaska and Japan quite frequently. They need to know the culture and heritage of Japan, the United States, the regional history of Northern Japan, and the State history of Alaska. Additionally, they need to be able to navigate the incredible subtleness of Japanese hierarchy and manners, while also being able to hold their own in the more independently-minded American society. We haven’t even gotten to the content yet! It is enough to take your breath away, but those are my children’s needs. So when I am writing out objectives, I have to consider how the subject is taught differently in Japan and America, the differences in ethics and etiquette, etc. And I have to incorporate those differences in a way that they understand when to lean on one knowledge base or another.

So, we write, and consider, objectives because our lesson plan objectives are not the same as your objectives. To summarize, the reasons to focus on objectives are the same reasons you chose to homeschool!

Ok. So what makes a good lesson plan objective?

At the end of the day, an objective is simply a statement, or collection of statements, about what you are trying to accomplish. That’s it! What do you want your child to learn. Simple, right? Well, it is simple, but let’s look a bit closer:

Objective #1: My child will learn…XYZ…

STOP!

You can never show that your child ‘learned’ something. As much as you know about your child, you can never know what is going on in their head. Maybe they have a photographic memory and can recite everything they have ever seen. Does that mean they ‘learned’ the material? Focus instead on objectives that have the child demonstrate knowledge.

“My child will …”

What goes into ‘…’?

And , for that matter, what is knowledge? A fully photographic mind can recall any fact once given to them – is that knowledge? What if they can’t apply it? Or, what if they can apply the knowledge, but can’t use it to create new knowledge?

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a set of hierarchical models that categorize the different levels of learning, from the most basic to, what Benjamin Bloom thought in 1953, the most advanced. This taxonomy is used throughout the educational world to write high-quality, measurable, objectives. They start at the most basic level and ascend from there: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, evaluation, create (synthesis). (Note: the taxonomy was revised in 2001, so some differences in the order of the upper levels is commonly seen.) I highly encourage you to dive into this area and explore in depth what each of these knowledge levels entails. For now, take a look at Mesa Community College’s website which has compiled a list of action verbs associated with each of these knowledge levels. Use these verbs, or similar ones, when writing your objectives and you won’t be far off!

For my 3 and 5-year-old, I will be starting low on the taxonomy and working them up the ladder. Drawing heavily from the ‘knowledge and understanding categories.

Lesson Plan: Science of Snow objectives

Let’s revisit the ‘Science of Snow’ lesson plan objectives.

1. Students will be able to observe and describe the characteristics of snowflakes.
2. Student will be able to discuss why sometimes it snows and sometimes it rains.
3. Students will be able to compare and contrast the properties of snow and water.
4. Students will be able to record their observations and findings in a science journal.
5. Students will be able to define and use vocabulary associated with snow.

How are we doing? Objectives #1, #2, #4, and #5 are all using verbs primarily from the ‘knowledge’ and ‘comprehension’ columns and are tracking for a lesson plan for kindergartners. What about #3? Compare and contrast is an upper-level skill. This is where you need to know your students. Are they ready for that level? I would say that the verb doesn’t determine if they are ready, but what comes after it. Ensure that what you are asking of them is a stretch goal, to be sure, but make sure they can reach it with an appropriate amount of effort!

In this case, kindergartners are not going to be keeping a full-fledged ‘science journal’. But… they can draw what they see, describe their drawing to you and keep it in a science folder, right? And if you called that folder their ‘science journal’, you would be introducing the concept to them! So let’s modify #3 just a smidge:

Objective #3: Students will draw pictures of what they observe and keep their drawings in their ‘science journal’.

One last add –

One final adjustment. You will notice that I have Objective #5 covering language arts for science for my little bilingual English learners, but nothing in there addresses cultural differences. As it turns out, both the Alaskan Natives of Alaska and the Ainu of Japan have a very rich history and relationship with snow!

So:

Objective #6: Discuss ways that the Alaskan Native and the Ainu have learned to survive and thrive in the snow.

And there you have it!

We have taken a bit of a dive into why you should take objective writing seriously and put some very deliberate thought into creating sound and solid objectives.

In our next post, we will start getting into actual content creation!