Marco replies, "Nothing..."
As a teacher, there is nothing more frustrating than to hear my students think that they didn't learn anything. If the parent asked me this question, my answer would be entirely different. Why? Because I knew all of the learning goals and objectives for my students for that day. But did my students know what they were doing and why? This is the real question....
Looking at learning from a student's perspective, activities are what you do because your teacher told you to do them. If students are asked what they are doing and why, they usually tell you about the directions that the teacher gave but they rarely know why they are doing the activity. As result, activities become an "act of doing" rather than a true "act of learning."
If a lesson begins with explaining the goals and objectives (GLETs) to the students and frequent references are made to the GLETs throughout the lesson, this can help students begin to make connections between the activity and why they are doing the activity.
Try this experiment:
Step 1. Frequently refer to your GLETs throughout a lesson.
Step 2. At the end of every lesson, ask your students to think-pair-share the question:
What did you learn today?
Step 3. In the beginning, model this process for your students.
Step 4. Over time, monitor the quality of your students' responses and see if the students begin to make connections between the activity and the GLETs.
