SIMPLICITY

***NOTE THIS BLOG POST WAS WRITTEN BEFORE I DECIDED TO FOCUS ON AGILE AND STUDENT TEAMS***

Being clear and explicit on the objectives for a lesson is one of the most effective teaching strategies you can use. As a core teaching concept, clarity and simplifying your teaching to the most important aspects of any lesson that will go a long way to help students in their learning journey.

WHAT DO SOME EXPERTS SAY?

Don't take my word for the importance of teacher clarity, let's take a look at what some experts in education say.

John Hattie, in his book "Visible Learning", did a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement found that teacher clarity had an effect size of .75 which on the scale below is high in the zone of desired effects. This ranks as the #2 contribution from the teacher (if done well) to effect student achievement. 

I highly recommend this book as an essential companion book for educators as it offers a researched based look all the things we do in education and the actual effect on student achievement. 

Additionally, Robert J. Marzano in his book "The New Art and Science of Teaching" reinforces this idea by arguing,

"If students understand what they are to learn during a give lesson or unit, they are better able to determine how well they are doing and what they need to improve." (Marzano, p. 11)

This is definitely another great book that should be on every educator's bookshelf. It has a number of great instructional strategies that when practiced and done correctly, can help increase student achievement. 

HOW TO COMMUNICATE CLEARLY

There are a number of ways you as the teacher can clearly articulate the objective of the lesson. As you may have experienced though, simply posting the objective on the board or on your website, doesn't always translate to our students. Ideally, we want students to be able to authentically and truly understand the learning objective and why it is important in their education. So here is one idea you could try in class:

• Have a discussion on the objective and why they think it's important to them and their lives.
  • Start by displaying the objective and have them individually reflect on what it means and why it's important.
  • Next, have them discuss in a group of three what they think, making sure every student has a chance to speak. Set a timer for the small group, so they know how long they are expected to talk.
  • Walk around the room, listen to their thoughts and jot down some things you hear.
  • After the timer sounds, bring back the whole group together and talk about what you heard. Say, "As I was walking around the room, I heard some great discussion around the importance of (blank) because of (blank). Would someone like to expand on why this is important?"
  • Try to get as many voices in the room as you can.
  • This doesn't have to be long. In fact, the more succinct you can have them be while still honoring their thinking process, the better. 
  • Additionally, have them keep a learning journal to write or type their thoughts and progress towards the learning goal.

A blog post for another day and to take your teaching further, how might students create their own learning goals and ways to achieve that goal?