Chapter 2

Establish Mathematics Goals to Focus Learning

Reflect: 

After reading Chapter 2, please reflect on the questions below and post your response by Monday. Feel free to respond to any of the questions provided or share something else that you intentionally did differently in regards to establishing goals to focus learning. 

Please note: the prompts below are to help you reflect. There is not an expectation for you to respond to all {or even any} of the provided questions! 

Respond:   

Select a lesson that you recently taught and re-examine the goals for that lesson.

• Would you classify the goals as learning goals or performance goals? 
• In what ways did you communicate the purpose of the lesson to your students?

Now imagine you will be teaching the lesson again. 

• What is it that you want your students to understand about the mathematics of the lesson? Rewrite the goals so they are clearly learning goals that make explicit the mathematical ideas, concepts, and relationships you want students to understand. 
• How might these more explicit goal statements better guide your decision-making as you prepare for the lesson and teach the lesson? 
• Using the revised and more explicit learning goals, develop two questions for assessing your student's progress toward the goals during the lesson, and design an exit task related to the goals to gain information for planning subsequent lessons.

Interact: 

On Tuesday, read your colleagues' reflections and respond to at least one other post by sharing a comment, insight, or interesting possibility by Friday.