As someone who is going to be a science teacher, and someone
who has been in science education classrooms for the last sixteen or so years,
I can understand how important it is to have goals both for teachers and
students. These goals should push
students or teachers to meet high expectations, but still be manageable or
achievable for every student or teacher.
Progression toward these goals is also something that both teachers and
students will want to see, so these goals should have a measureable aspect to
them. These goals should be well
articulated and accompanied by an explanation of how we will determine if the
goal has been met.
Goal 1: My classroom
will one in which respect will demonstrated.
This is one
of the most important goals in my mind for any classroom. Students who treat each other and any other
person respectfully, any amount of learning is possible. If student strive to reach this goal, there
would be openness in the classroom because everyone’s ideas would be valued
just the same. When this occurs,
critical thinking about ideas and coming up with new ideas, then proffering them and being engaged in classroom activities should increase as well.
Goal 2: I will help
my students to recognize that they are apart of something much bigger than just
themselves, and seek to improve society.
This whole
goal is about getting students to look at things that are happening around
them, and then transfer the things they are learning in the classroom to these
happenings. Seeing something that's happening, then using what you learn to fix it, or make something work better can be one of the most rewarding experiences in someone's life. If we can get students to
think critically about the events and environment that they live in and the
concepts that they are learning about in the classroom, we may yet find someone
to cure cancer or figure out how to travel faster than light.
Goal 3: I want
students to be confident in their work and interactions in the classroom.
Confidence
is espoused when students feel like their ideas and responses are valued. Encourage respect, let the students know that
what they are saying is worth it (writing down everyone’s ideas in a list as
they give them, giving everyone in the class a voice in what’s happening, encouraging
people look at things from a new angle, etc.), and it will be worth it. Students will be more involved in classroom
activities if they think that they won’t get jumped on if their ideas aren’t
the greatest. Dr. Kruse and I were
talking about getting students involved, we talked about wait time – in my
growing up years I was taught about the value of silence: taking time to
organize your thoughts before you speak shows that you value fact that a person
was willing to ask you about your ideas, and then waiting for them to respond
reciprocates that you respect their ideas just as much as they respect yours.
Goal 4: I want all of
my students to exhibit critical thinking in their work, and responses.
This ranks
right up there with respect in terms of importance in a classroom – especially in
a science classroom. This skill is
something that has pushed scientists to new understanding of the world around
them. This does not mean criticizing
others ideas, or running them down because their ideas; in fact it means the
opposite. It means that you as a
scientists respect someone else’s ideas to look at them and make sure that they
have the best explanation possible. This
is how we as members of a scientific community make our ideas stronger and
better, but to do things one must show creativity, curiosity, and communication
with other scientists; we have to have a deep understanding of the content, and
even what knowledge is as it is being changed.
Tying all those things together behind a the force of a critically
thinking mind and anyone can be unstoppable, life-long learner.
Goal 5: I will help
students be able to demonstrate a high level of understanding of the course
content and then be able to apply that knowledge to areas outside the
classroom.
Teachers
always want students to learn the material that they are teaching. Always.
But no matter how we try to get the students to learn something, we
can’t force feed them the information and expect anything but regurgitation. Fostering the curiosity and critical
thinking, the interaction and cooperation; getting the students to have fun and
be interested in the material – tying those things together is the best way to
get students to a high level of understanding of the course content.
Goal 6: Creativity,
curiosity, communication, and cooperation are imperatives in science. I will encourage students to exhibit these
when necessary to complete their work.
How do you
think we found out some of the new scientific ideas that have revolutionized
the world as we know it? People didn’t
just follow some recipe, they try something new, they were creative, they
communicated with people around them, they cooperated with some people and
worked on their own for a while. All in
all they came up with something new – that’s what I call being creative. But you can’t just come up with something and
shout “Eureka!” This creativity is
disguised in many ways – everything from choosing how or what you measure, what
or how you experiment, what conclusions you draw, how you analyze things. A firm grounding in the subject material, the
ability to think critically, and a healthy serving of respect, confidence and
perspective those are the things that help put necessary creativity into our
grasp.
Goal 7: Knowledge is a tool; I aim to show students what the
nature of knowledge is and how to use it for their benefit.
Having a
tool but not knowing how to use it is just about as bad as building an atomic
bomb and not knowing how devastating it can be.
We as educators need to show students that knowledge is something to be
desired and isn’t just isolated for one area – what you learn in one area can
be used in another. Knowledge is a
powerful tool and should be used correctly; it’s our job to help students see
that. How do we do that, just about the
same way that I’ve saying: work at fostering all of those things that I’ve
talked about in previous few paragraphs and the understanding of what knowledge
is and how to use it.
Goal 8: I want my
students to be actively engaged in learning, and to do so I want them to set,
and strive to achieve goals that the set for themselves.
Getting
students involved in their own learning experience is the ultimate goal for
most teachers. We want to see that
students have that students know what knowledge is, the content knowledge,
creativity, cooperation, respect, communication, critical thinking, and their
perspective through their participation.
If we can get students to set goals for themselves and help them achieve
them we empower them in their own learning which help them throughout the rest
of their lives.
After watching and reading several materials from Dr. Kruse
and adapting my experiences, these goals and their explanations would be
something that I would put in a class syllabus that would be handed out to all
of my students, but also posted in the classroom where they could be seen by
everyone. Doing this would ensure that these
goals were always on the students minds – students would always be striving to
achieve them.
