Defining Student Objectives

As I go through my journey to work to prepare myself for my quickly approaching student teaching experience, I believe that the task of clearly stating objectives should not be taken lightly.  How can we truly assess our students if we never have a set goal for them to reach?  Starting a unit of instruction with no plan of action and no end goal would be like setting out to solve world hunger with no plan at all.  If I were to walk into my classroom in January and begin teaching my students without stating any sort of objectives, I would end up frustrating myself as well as my students.

  "Objectives...help teachers decide what is truly relevant and worthy of students' learningn versus taht which is "nice to know." (Newcomb et.al).  It is all too easy for a teacher to get excited about a topic and go off on a tyrant that may in fact be a waste of the students educational time.  We only have a very limited amount of time with our students in the classroom, and I do not want to waste even a minute of it.  By clearly establishing objectives from the beginning, I will better be able to lay out my lessons to ensure that I am covering the most important information. 

On the other side, having objectives clearly stated for the students at the beginning of each class allows them to see up front what is going to be expected of them.  According to Whittington, clarity at the beginning of the class gives students a "raod map" to follow.  This road map relieves anxiety and frustration that students may experience without that missing piece that helps make sense of their educational journey.

As I take this information and put it into practice I cannot help but remember my days in the classroom.  It seemed that all too often I would sit in a class, unsure of what was expected of me, and stress about it.  Often time the stress and frustration lead to me "checking out" in the middle of the lesson, then trying to teach myself the material while working through my homework.  As a future educator, it is my hope to truly capture my students interest and keep that interest by providing them with the "road map" they will need to make it through my class.  Education should not be a stressful thing.  I do not want my classroom to be the cause of my students stress.  I believe that working to develop clearly stated objectives each and every class period will help to accomplish this goal.