Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

What?

An objective was given for students to read clothing care labels and follow them. Students were expected to do one load of laundry.

So what?

When I did the assignment last year, I did not give the students an objective. I received thank you's from parents because their kids were forced to do laundry, but when they asked their students why they were having to do laundry, the students could not give them an answer. This year, I put the objective on the top of the paper and it's amazing how much more successful the students were. The parents were leaving notes on the form about how successful (or not) the students were and because of the point values I gave, they were describing how many points the student should get. Because of the wording of the objective and the primitive rubric, students and parents were able to better understand the purpose of the project.

Now what?

Next year I will build a more specific rubric for the students so that they are able to know exactly how many points are assigned to each area.