Methods of Teaching

Today in class (5 minutes)
Choose someone to give an oral summary about creating objectives, as covered in the 
last class session. Ask for additional contributions, but do not allow more than two 
Student Teachers to answer. Tell the class that they will be writing objectives for their 
lesson plans today. 
Practise distinguishing between goals and activities/assignments (15 minutes) 
Using transparencies and an overhead projector, complete the first three examples 
in Handout 8 ‘Learning Goals vs. Activities and Assignments’ as a class. Ask Student 
Teachers to explain their responses. Have the class work in groups of four to complete 
the remaining examples. After they finish, review the answers as a class.

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COURSE GUIDE: Methods of Teaching
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UNIT 1
UNIT 4
UNIT 5
UNIT 3
UNIT 6
UNIT 2
UNIT 7
Practise turning topic statements into learning goals (15 minutes)
Explain the importance of being able to distinguish between topic statements and 
learning goals. Share a few examples of topic statements and how they are different 
from learning goals. For example: 
• Student Teachers will be able to write learning goals for both knowledge and
understanding that can be confirmed through assessment. (a learning goal)
• Learning goals about knowledge and understanding (a topic statement)
Ask Student Teachers how these are different and which is the learning goal and why?
Invite the Student Teachers to work in pairs to create other examples. Move around 
the class to help them and discuss the examples they create. 
Writing learning goals for lesson plans (15 minutes)
Have Student Teachers organize themselves in triads to work on developing lesson 
plan. (They must choose a topic within nutrition for their lesson.) As a group, they 
will write two objectives (goals) that require lower-order thinking skills and two that 
require higher-order thinking skills for their lesson.