Posting Content & Language Objectives Will NOT Magically Make Students More Successful

No. It’s how we engage students with the objectives that makes magic!

For years, teachers at the campus where I worked were asked to post objectives clearly on the board. I, like many of my colleagues, did this. I followed the directive given and posted the objectives. As administrators walked by and conducted the obligatory walk-throughs I was always given the pat on the back for having objectives. Yet, they were a bureaucratic check mark in many ways. I complied with what I was asked to do.

Then one amazing day at a workshop the presenter empowered me with how to use objectives with my learners…as a tool for their own learning and it was a magical.

Here’s what I learned.

​Objectives are more powerful when we put them in the hands of the learners and let them grapple with them. Objectives are not meant only for teachers and those that evaluate teachers, they are for designed to support the learners.  
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1. After determining the content and language objectives, make them student-friendly,  post them, and READ them together as a class.
2. Point out academic vocabulary by highlighting or making specific words bold.
3. Annotate the objectives with synonyms and visuals as students listen and watch.
4. Ask students to do something with the objectives. For instance, students can:
   1. Pick a word from the objectives and use it in a sentence
   2. Select a word and act it out or draw an illustration
   3. Paraphrase or summarize the objectives
5. Have students "turn and learn" from their partners by sharing what you’ve asked them to do in step 4.
6. Finally, at the end of the lesson, activate students' metacognition by reviewing the objectives and having them rate their understanding or mastery. Where are they in the learning process? Did they master the objectives today? If not, what will they do? Prepare to share grade appropriate strategies such as come to tutoring, ask the teacher, reread the materials, etc.

In the book, Motivating ELLs, Dr. Lora Beth Escalante shares this process of amplifying content and language objectives (pages 52-55) and you can also find classroom examples by searching "annotated language objectives" on Twitter. 

Posting objectives is a great step in the direction. It gave me a clear path for students’ success. Now I was helping them to walk it with me. We became laser focused and united in our learning journey.