eJournal 4: Analyzing Instructional Goals

What kinds of thinking do you value and want to promote in your classroom?

There are several kinds of thinking needed to work through the unit of instructions of Coordinate Geometry for 8th grade.  The students have already had exposure to many of the concepts and have experience with the grid.   The new concepts will build on that knowledge and they will be required to analyze the information or problem in parts or by their relationships.

Using Marzano's Thinking Skills Levels I want the students to be able to recognize the patterns and relate them to what has already been taught in previous units or even grades.  The should be able to organize the information in the problem so they can identify patterns that might appear.

I also want them to utilize some critical thinking skills such as developing questions about what they see and to leverage their curiosity to want to find the answer.

Another type of thinking that I want the students to benefit from is reflection.   To contemplate what they learned and what value it might have in their learning or what skill or knowledge did they use from previous learning to advance their understanding of this unit.

The unit provided by the district outlines the TEKS as a categorization of Objectives or Goals.  I believe the following are more goal oriented as it does not provide a specific objective:

1. Geometry and spatial reasoning. The student uses geometry to model and describe the physical world
2. Patterns, relationships, algebraic thinking. The student makes connections among various representations of a numerical relationship. 
3. Geometry and spatial reasoning.The student uses transformational geometry to develop spatial sense.
4. Measurement. The student describes how changes in dimensions affect linear, area, and volume measures. 

I think for the most part those goals are helpful, but I would also add the following: 

• Develop a better understanding of the vocabulary for coordinate planes and mathematical operations
• Recognize and apply various representations of equations to aid in problem solving
• Organize mathematical writing as a strategy for solving problems.
• Reflect on prior learning and how it affected the current unit
• Develop questions and predict possible solutions or answers