Learning Goals

Learning goals are specific statements of intended student attainment of

essential concepts and skills.

3 Pivotal QuestionsWhere is the learner going?

Where is the learner right now?

How will the learner get there?

(Thompson &Wiliam, 2007)

Learning GoalThe learning goal is the heart of assessment for learning and needs to be made clear at the planning stage if teachers are to find assessment for learning manageable.

The Instruction & Assessment Planning Process

1. Establish Unit Big Idea(s) from IACC2. Establish:

– Learning Goals– Criteria for Success– Formative assessment strategies

3. Review and revise– Check alignment with Big Ideas– Specificity of Learning Goals, Success Criteria and

FA

Instruction & Assessment Planning Template

Essential Concept/Skill:

Big Idea:

Learning Goals Success Criteria AfL Strategies

FROM THE RESEARCHDeeping Understanding of Learning Goals

Literature Review Activity

Review the Iowa Assessment for Learning Literature Review and the Assessment for Learning Brief sections on Learning Goals.

Reading ReflectionAfter completing a review of both documents, collaborate on completing a converging radial.

Quotes from Research1. When teachers start from what it is they want students to know and design their instruction

backward from that goal, then instruction is far more likely to be effective (Wiggins and McTighe 2000).

2. The indispensable conditions for improvement are that the student comes to hold a concept of quality roughly similar to that held by the teacher, is continuously able to monitor the quality of what is being produced during the act of production itself, and has a repertoire of alternative moves or strategies from which to draw at any given point ."A key premise is that for students to be able to improve, they must have the capacity to monitor the quality of their own work during actual production ... This in turn requires that students:“ (

– Know what high quality work looks like – Be able to objectively compare their work to the standard – Have a store of tactics to make work better based on their observations." (Royce Sadler 1989).

3. Students cannot assess their own learning or set goals to work toward without a clear vision of the intended learning”(R.Stiggins, J. Arter, J. Chappuis & S. Chappuis, 2006)

4. Sharing learning objectives or intentions offers pupils an opportunity to become involved in what they are learning through discussing and deciding the criteria for success, which they can then use to identify evidence of improvements (Eric Young 2005).

5. Classroom where students understand the learning outcomes for daily lessons see performance rates 20% higher than those where learning outcomes are unclear. (Marzano, 2003)

Why Share Learning GoalsResearch suggests that pupils who understand what they are being asked to learn and how they will recognize success are more likely to make learning gains than those who don’t. This is particularly true for less able pupils.

Black& Wiliam (1998, 2003, 2004, 2009)DeMeester & Jones (2009)Meyer, Turner & Spencer (1997)Wiggins & McTighe (2000)

The general effect of setting goals or objectives produces a gain of between 18% and 41%) [Marzano, Classroom Instruction that

Works, p. 93].

Why is it important to focus on student learning outcomes?

34%

Clear Learning GoalsImpact on students:

• More focused (especially underachieving students).

• Demand knowing the learning target.• More likely to express learning needs

– specifically.• Develops a learning culture.• Quality of work improves.• Behavior improves.• Persevere longer.• Greater ownership of learning as

responsibility shifts from teacher to student.

• Automatically self-evaluative.• More enthusiastic about learning.

Impact on teachers:

• More focused.• Sharpens teacher understanding of

learning target.• Expectations rise.• Focus on quality rather than getting

everything done.• More critical of activities.• Reinforces relevant vocabulary.• Assists in reflection of lesson and

learning that occurred. • Strengthen connections with

parents related to child’s strengths and weaknesses.

Why is this important?• There is a body of research that indicates when

students are clear about their learning goal, a goal that describes the intended learning, they perform significantly better than those who are given goals that focus on task completion.

• Making the intended learning clear, substitutes a

learning goal mindset for their activity-oriented way of thinking.

– It focuses the attention to learning by helping them understand that the assignment is the means to the learning.

Why is it important to share learning goals with students?

• Gives students a clear idea of what will be learned and why• Transfers some of the responsibility for learning to the students• Enables students to be active participants rather than passive recipients• Gives students a clear idea of what they are aspiring to, so they are

more likely to achieve• Provides students with a tool for evaluating their own learning• Makes the task clearer for students, so they may carry it out more

successfully• Helps students to focus on the purpose of the learning, rather than

merely on the completion of the activity• Helps students to stay on task and refine their work so that this matches

the objectives more closely• Helps teachers review progress and gives them a clearer focus for their

marking

Adapted from Brighton & Hove Assessment for Learning Project (September 2002)

What They Are Not:

• arrive from evidence already known about the students’ learning;• are written in student-friendly terms;• are based on an understanding of the learning progression;• allow students to make connections to prior learning;• guide the development of success criteria;• guide the development of formative and summative assessments; and• guide teacher actions.

Learning Goal Qualities:

• descriptions of student tasks or activities• necessarily measureable

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE IN IOWA

Learning Goals

Economics Learning Progression

Essential Concept: Understand the role of scarcity and economic trade-offs and how economic conditions impact people’s lives.

K-2 3-5 6-8 9-12 Understand the role of scarcity

and economic trade-offs and how economic conditions impact people’s lives.

Types of resources and that they are limited.

The economic trade-offs that individuals and households weigh when making decisions involving the use of limited resources.

Understand the role of scarcity and economic trade-offs and how economic conditions impact people’s lives. Choices usually involve tradeoffs: people can give up buying or doing one thing in order to buy or do something else. Wide disparities exist between the “haves” and “have-nots” of the world in terms of economic well-being. The goods and services that the local school and community provide and the people who provide them.

Understand the role of scarcity and economic trade-offs and how economic conditions impact people's lives. The wide disparities that exist across the globe in terms of economic assets and choices. Good judgment in making personal choices related to spending and saving. Predicts short-term and long-term financial consequences based on current choices. Ways goods and services are produced and distributed The differences between producers and consumers in a market economy.

Understand the role of scarcity and economic trade-offs and how economic conditions impact people’s lives.The relationship between economic goals and the allocation of scarce resources.How economic incentives influence the economic choices made by individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies to use scarce human capital and natural resources more efficiently to meet their economic goals.

From Jason Riley, East Union CSD

Big Idea: Scarcity and economic trade-offs are essential to all economic activity. (Econ 1)

Learning Goal Success Criteria FA Strategy

Understand the differences between producers and consumers in a market

economy.

I can:

Understand the ways goods and services are produced and

distributed.

I can:

Understand the influences that affect personal economic choices.

I can:.

Examples of Learning Goals from the Iowa Core

Essential Concept: Understand how geographic and human characteristics create culture and define regions.

Learning Goal Example: Understand that geographic regions define both convenient and manageable units upon which to build our knowledge of the world.

Learning Goal Example: Understand that a basic unit of geographic study is the region, an area on the earth’s surface that is defined by certain unifying characteristics.

Social Studies, Geography, Grades 6-8

Big Idea: Geographers have developed regions as tools to examine, define, describe, explain, and analyze the human and physical environment.

Questions to Focus Feedback• Does the learning goal focus on what students will learn

instead of what students will do?• Will the learning goal help students to focus on the purpose

of the learning, rather than merely on the completion of the activity?

• Is the learning goal written in age-appropriate language students will understand?

• Is the learning goal aligned to the Big Idea of the learning intention?

• Is the learning goal aligned to the essential concept and skill?

This PowerPoint was adapted from a PowerPoint created for the 2009-2010 Assessment for Learning Project of the

Iowa Department of Education in partnership with