The 16 Week Challenge: Week 2

 

Welcome back to week 2 of our Fall 2024 16 Week Teaching Challenge!

Is this your first time checking in? No problem. Take a minute and read The Big Launch post here, and get caught up on the Week 1 Challenge here. 

If, on the other hand, you're ready to begin, here's this week's challenge.

Week 2: Aug. 19 - Practice Learning Targets

The challenge is to put into practice what you learned last week by actively using learning targets throughout lessons. (Revisit pp. 152-153 of last week's reading if you need a refresh.)

What does this look like? The method is up to you, but it should look like revisiting them throughout a lesson so you and students know what you're trying to accomplish and how close you are to it.

That could look like:

• Inserting learning target slides before each new section of a lesson
• Internalizing a lesson to plant Checking for Understanding opportunities, and fronting them with a quick learning target reminder.
• Or - my favorite - simply writing the targets on the board so they are ALWAYS visible to kids and revisiting them as often as you and they need to.

So, choose an idea, try it out, and see what impact it makes on your teaching (Does it improve your clarity? Your pacing?) and your students' learning (Do kids know why they're doing what they are?),

Completed that? Yay! You just completed your Week 2 Teaching Challenge. If you want, you can log your success here, and be sure to check back next week - August 26 - for Week 3!

Here's to simply teaching well,