Gaining clarity on our goals...

This chapter starts by giving a brief summary of what GOALS would be. As the authors express, what we need to do before and while planning is to have in mind what we are aiming at. So, the authors in this chapter define four points to aim at when planning a lesson: First of all we need to identify what our goals are, meaning what we want students to achieve. Secondly, it’s necessary to know what understandings we are expected. Third, We need to define some essential questions that will guide and focus our teaching to address what we want to, and finally, we need to identify what knowledge and skills our students will get from this, meaning the evidence and the results we want.

This chapter deals with some problems with standards teachers may have while planning. There are many reasons why teachers can get overwhelmed with standards, maybe because there are too many, they are too big or too small, and even sometimes they are nebulous, meaning that they can be misunderstood or interpreted differently depending on who is reading them. So at least I would say the same happens in Chile; teachers do not know how to address or direct their planning and many times they do not even try to do so. I would say that’s what happens most of the times in Chile, at least that is what I have observed throughout my experiences at school…This may happen, among other things, because teachers barely have the time to prepare their classes and so thinking of doing something more elaborated? .. No way!