Making it Click: Aligning Outcomes, Activities, and Assessments

Creating based on the BHAG

The BHAG or big hairy audacious goal is a term I've become familiar with in the EDLD program at Lamar University, but it was a little daunting trying to come up with one for my students.  I began looking back through this year at what we have studied and trying to locate gaps where students really didn't grasp the concepts as I had hoped.  I went all the way back to the beginning of the year and the first unit we study which is foundations of geography.  This is where things didn't gel the first time.  Students struggled with the concept of how geography plays a huge role in where people settle in the world.  I gave some great activities and compelling examples of how this worked, but the learning still didn't happen.  

I began to think about how much work I had done to make this concept come to life and how little my students had done and that is where I found my problem to solve and my BHAG.  The students need to discover why geography relates to where people settle on their own.  I can give them the tools, they will have to pick them up and use them.  I spent time coming up with a plan to create a significant learning environment for my students and activities that will be meaningful as well as ways to assess the learning.  

The creation of the unit with a BHAG as my guide will be a game changer for my students to learn.  I cannot wait to come back to this post after implementing my innovation plan and this unit just to see how well the changes I'm bringing to my classroom have gone over!

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References:

​Harapnuik, D. (2015). Connecting the dots vs collecting the dots. https://youtu.be/85XpexQy68g.