Learning Targets - The Most Important Part of a Lesson!
Fundamental Purpose: High levels of learning for ALL!
The first thing students need to learn is what they’re supposed to be learning - A Learning Target. This learning target needs to be written up on the board in student-friendly language - daily...
Why...
Establishes a Smarter Focus
A learning target puts the focus of the day’s activity on an achievement. Without a learning target, the class’s focus is on the teacher, blindly following and (hopefully) adhering to instructions. Learning targets change this classic dynamic in a subtle but powerful way. Knowing the target allows activities to be placed in context. Prior knowledge is activated and predictions of the new content are made automatically as students interpret the goal.
Conveys Ownership - I Can Statements
By writing it in the first person, as an “I can…” statement, it conveys the ownership students must assume over the content. After discussing the meaning of the learning target with students, pick a random student and ask, “What will you be able to say with pride before you leave today’s lesson?”
Essential Learner Outcomes are about instruction, derived from content standards, written in teacher language, and used to guide teaching during a lesson or across a series of lessons. They are not designed for students but for the teacher. A shared learning target, on the other hand, frames the lesson from the students’ point of view.
Helps Define Competencies
Learning targets do more than give students a smarter focus in class and clarify the planning process for teachers. Because a teacher has to unpack broader standards or unit goals into incremental skills, a map of sorts is created. The big concepts are broken into smaller chunks. This can lead to a powerful practice called competency-based learning.
To be clear, competency-based learning has many implications about self-directed learning that go beyond the practice of learning targets. Chunking, or the practice of unpacking standards into incremental steps, ties the two topics together. All the same, competencies pair beautifully with formative assessments. If teachers collect data on which skills students are mastering and what skills need remediation, classroom decisions are made all the more effective.
Thanks for all you do, you are appreciated by many! Terry
