Speaker Spotlight: Tim Westerberg

For the first time, ASCD is broadcasting sessions live from Summer Conference in Orlando, Fla., from June 22 to 24. Award-winning former principal Tim Westerberg, also the author of Becoming a Great High School: 6 Strategies and 1 Attitude That Make a Difference, will be the first televised presenter at the conference. In the age of standards and assessments, his book tackles the challenge of high school redesign by pairing a comprehensive, research-based model with the commonsense tone of a seasoned educator.

In the third chapter of his book, Westerberg explains that clear instructional goals should be evident not only in classroom learning activities, but also in each student’s mind-set. He has watched students completing discrete tasks without knowing the overall purpose:

In my visits to high school classrooms … I frequently find that students know what they are responsible for doing, but not what they are supposed to be learning. If I ask a student, 'What are you supposed to be learning by doing (the activity at hand),' he or she responds with a frustrated 'I don’t know. She just told us to read the chapter and answer the questions at the end.' Wrong answer!

Should a student care about the content of his or her summer reading—or the required page count? Should students transcribe science vocabulary before working in the lab? Are the students completing tasks with zero knowledge of the ultimate learning goal really learning? According to Westerberg, this dangerous "check-it-off mentality" leads to the degradation of learning—and more importantly, the loss of student motivation.

How do you ensure your students know and understand learning goals?