3.1 Establish challenging learning goals
Set learning goals that provide achievable challenges for students of varying abilities and characteristics.
One of the most important duties of an effective teacher is to assess the abilities of individual students and set challenging but achievable goals. It is also important to provide encouragement towards these goals and make students feel good about their achievements.
During my second practicum I had several students who were on modified programs. While I did not personally set their learning goals I made sure to investigate each of their IEP’s and ensure that I differentiated my teaching according to their individual goals and constantly monitored their progress to ensure that their goals were still appropriate. Here is an example of some of the learning goals for several of my Year 8 science students.
“Peter…has been able to develop good relationships with the students. He knows each by name, and recognises their strengths and weaknesses.”
“Peter has developed the ability to vary the timing of his lesson to suit the students, and to recognise when they require more or less time on an activity. He always has an extension activity available if students complete the set tasks and has allowed extra time and learning opportunities if they are struggling with the completion of a task.”
“He has sought information about the abilities and strength of the classes prior to teaching them and also gained his own insight via observation for the first few days/week at the school. From this he has delivered courses that have been varied and catered for a wide variety of learning styles.”
One of the most important duties of an effective teacher is to assess the abilities of individual students and set challenging but achievable goals. It is also important to provide encouragement towards these goals and make students feel good about their achievements.
During my second practicum I had several students who were on modified programs. While I did not personally set their learning goals I made sure to investigate each of their IEP’s and ensure that I differentiated my teaching according to their individual goals and constantly monitored their progress to ensure that their goals were still appropriate. Here is an example of some of the learning goals for several of my Year 8 science students.
“Peter…has been able to develop good relationships with the students. He knows each by name, and recognises their strengths and weaknesses.”
“Peter has developed the ability to vary the timing of his lesson to suit the students, and to recognise when they require more or less time on an activity. He always has an extension activity available if students complete the set tasks and has allowed extra time and learning opportunities if they are struggling with the completion of a task.”
“He has sought information about the abilities and strength of the classes prior to teaching them and also gained his own insight via observation for the first few days/week at the school. From this he has delivered courses that have been varied and catered for a wide variety of learning styles.”