Lesson 13 - Learning Goals

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Presentation of Theoretical Construct

Reading: Chapter 10
  
 

Lecture Information: Learning Goals

  1. Mastery Orientation:
    Students with learning goals have a fairly simple approach; it's hard to do but it is simple.  They want to master the subject matter and will do just about anything to accomplish that.  They want to refine their understanding, improve their skill, increase their depth of understanding.  They are the dream come true students that may not be the brightest in the class but they have a great influence on everyone else because of the example of industry they set.

  2. "Task-Involved" Learner's Characteristics

    1. Risk-Takers
      These students are the ones who raise their hands and ask the tough questions that everybody wants to ask but lack the courage.  You ask for volunteers, and their hand goes up.  Sometimes, you as their teacher are sure that they have bitten off more than they can chew on projects, but they somehow get through it.

    2. Feedback
      You take your class to the school swimming pool so they can calculate the volume of the water in the pool.  As you go around to the groups, you notice that one group is not measuring to the end of the pool and tell them so.  Task-involved learners look up at you and say things like, "thank you!" , "Oh, you're right." and "Come one let's fix it."  You as the teacher just found something wrong with their project but they "thank you" for the correction.

    3. Cooperative
      If a task-involved learner has a break through on a project, they will gladly share their information.  They tend to cooperate with other students well.  They will divide the work load into manageable parts for all in the group.

    4. Lost in Their Work
      You have to touch them on the shoulder to get them to leave at the end of the class period.  It sort of startles them when you call their name because they were working on their lab.  They ask if you can open the lab up on Saturdays so they can keep working. 

    5. Responsible
      They tend to share credit for successes appropriately and blame for failures as well.  They will volunteer a "My bad!" when they try something that doesn't work out.  When given recognition/praise they tend to point to the other people who helped out too.


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