Learning Goals

I've just moved to a new school district. The evaluation tool is a different one from the ones I've used before so I'm having to learn a whole new system.   Using learning goals is one I'm getting evaluated on this year.  This is an interesting one because as I understand it, this one in the evaluation refers to what the student is supposed to learn in the section or chapter and how well they are progressing towards it.

Usually, I just post the objectives in the form of "I can" statements but I've never taken the time to discuss them with my students.  I'd write them up, students would copy them down but we didn't do anything with them, so now I need to.

It has been stated that teacher clarity is extremely important.  One part of teacher clarity is communicating what will be learned and how a student knows they've learned it. In other words, a learning goal is the mathematical concept they are learning and to name the way they will show they learned it. So there are three suggestions for improving the implementation of learning goals.

First, one should create learning goals or learning intentions complete with a balanced set of both procedural and higher level thinking skills for rating success.  One should consider whether the learning intention focuses on the most important concepts in the lesson or are they referring to activities or tasks the students will complete.  At least one of the success criteria should include an element which allows the student to explain how to do something or actually do it.  Another element of the success criteria should allow students to justify, model or explain at a higher level.

Based on this, there should be the learning goal focused on the most important concept in the lesson and at least two ways the student can show how they know they've learned it.  The learning goal might be "I can solve one step equations."  The two ways to show they've learned it is by showing they can solve the problems and then show someone else how to do it.

Second, create and use routines that help focus students on the success criteria as they go through the lesson.  One of the routines a teacher can use is "Take Stock".  This is where the teacher might ask what they have done so far, ask a student to describe what the success criteria means in their own words. and asking how what they've done connects to the criteria.  Another possible routine is to create an anchor chart with three statements on knowing they are track because.........., they haven't met the learning goal yet because........., and what do they still need to do to reach the goal.

Finally, use responses to determine the next step.  For instance, if students are almost there, you might provide whole group feed back to help them the last bit of the way. If there is a bit of a gap between where the students are and the learning goal, you might want to provide further instruction.  If you get responses that don't tell you enough, you might want to gather additional evidence before making a decision, and if students are on track, move on.

Part of this has shown me that I need to work on setting better learning goals because I have not supplied the second part or how they know they've met the goal.  Since I have to create a professional learning goal, I think I'm going to make learning goals and success criteria as my goal for this year.  I want to learn to write them better.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.