This PDO course, Where Great Teaching Begins: Designing Learning Objectives for Effective Instruction, will give teachers and teacher leaders a deeper understanding of how to effectively plan for student thinking and learning. Using chapter readings and the ideas of “deep design” from Anne Reeves’s book Where Great Teaching Begins (ASCD, 2011), the course focuses on the critical role that student learning objectives play in the learning process. It will also examine how these learning objectives inform assessment and instruction. Course participants will also use the ideas of deep design to decide how to take proper advantage of technology tools for instruction in the 21st century.

Course Objectives

• Analyze the concept of "student learning objectives" to distinguish between statements of student learning and statements of student activities.
• Evaluate student learning objectives for clarity in targeting desired goals.
• Understand and create student learning objectives that form a meaningful sequence of learning.
• Analyze student learning objectives for validity and revise them for clarity and coherence across multiple objectives.
• Understand and analyze how student learning objectives move from the generic to the personalized during classroom instruction.
• Create student learning objectives based upon a national or state standard.
• Adapt student learning objectives to meet the needs of specific students.
• Analyze the correlation between student learning objectives and assessment.
• Compare classroom-based assessments and student learning objectives.
• Analyze three models of instruction to understand how each use student learning objectives.
• Analyze the three instructional models for common ideas on the role of student motivation in instruction.
• Evaluate instructional strategies (such as the flipped classroom) through the lens of each model.
• Analyze the influence that student learning objectives have on decisions about technology use in classrooms.
• Evaluate current technology tools in light of student learning objectives.
• Create novel ways of using technology tools to add value to instructional strategies.

Syllabus

(ASCD PD Online course, 2014) Self-paced asynchronous online course. Upon completion, learners will be awarded an ASCD Certificate worth up to 20 Clock Hours.