Great First Instruction - Lesson Preparation

WHAT:

In effective instruction, concrete content objectives that identify what students should know and be able to do must guide teaching and learning. Content objectives are grade level standards, targets, and goals that identify what students will learn in various subject areas. In addition to content objectives, each lesson should include a language objective that is designed to facilitate language development.

Clear content and language objectives aim to:

Focus on key concepts and skills
Identify the specific language that students will use to express the content
Allow opportunities for students to demonstrate critical thinking through reading, writing, speaking, and listening

WHY:

Frequently, state standards are complex and not written in a manner that is accessible to students. It is important to write lesson-level objectives and use student-friendly language.

HOW:

The Content Objective tells what students will learn and be assessed on during the lesson.

The Language Objective tells how the students will learn and/or demonstrate mastery of the lesson by reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Objectives are in addition to an agenda/list of tasks to complete during a lesson. Content and language objectives are to be displayed, defined, and reviewed.

Example:

Standard: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.NS.B.4: Find the greatest common factor of two whole numbers less than or equal to 100 and the least common multiple of two whole numbers less than or equal to 12.

Content Objective: Students will understand how to find the least common multiple (LCM) of two or more numbers.

Language Objective: Students will verbally explain to a partner the steps to solve problems for LCM using sentence frames.

“The first step in solving this problem was ________.”

“The next step was ________.”

“I checked my work by ________.”

Objectives Tool

Elementary

Objectives Tool

Secondary

Resources

Lesson Preparation Resource Slides