Benefits to Higher Cognitive Level Objectives

"Imagine embarking on a road trip across the United States to a specified, but unknown to you destination. To further complicate the situation, you are forbidden to take a map or to stop to ask for directions". Dr. Susie Whittington stated this at the beginning of her article, grabbing my attention right of the get go; this directly correlates with how I want my students to feel whenever my objectives for the lesson are stated!

Holding students to higher standards is something that I believe students will respect you (the teacher) for in the long term. Whenever objectives are stated at the beginning of class, even when they are hard, will interest the student and keep them in line throughout the class. Action verbs are a key factor in grabbing the students attention and help keep students attention; when students have their grades on the line, they are more likely to take notes and give the teacher their undivided attention.

Writing objectives that are at a high level is something that I plan on utilizing in the future. In order to make this successful, I will have to teach information that is on a higher level. As Dr. Susie Whittington states, "When we write objectives designed to challenge students at higher cognitive levels, we, as teachers must equally challenge ourselves to teach at higher cognitive levels". This means that in order for students to get the most out of our lessons, students must stay at the same cognitive level throughout the lesson. If students are taught on a low cognitive level and are tested on a high cognitive level, it is not fair to them and vise-versa. I want to make the lessons meaningful for myself, and my students!

Group assignments are good, but to a certain extent. Group projects must be small enough so all of the members can actively give input and engage with the other students. Having students pick their own groups may not be the best decision whenever the groups are more than a few people, groups need to have different strengths and ideas from all of the members. This is another reason for me, in the future, to really get to know my students. Learning where their strengths and weaknesses are will benefit not only that one student, but the whole classroom!

This weeks reading was very interesting and helpful for me at this point whenever I am figuring out what kind of teacher I want to be.
Thanks,
Mike