More About Learning Targets

From "Knowing Your Learning Target" by Moss, Brookhart, and Long:

Regardless of how important the content, how engaging the activity, how formative the assessment, or how differentiated the instruction, unless all students see, recognize, and understand the learning target from the very beginning of the lesson, one factor will remain constant:  The teacher will always be the only one providing the direction, focusing on getting students to meet the instructional objectives. The students, on the other hand, will focus on doing what the teacher says, rather than on learning.  

Students who don't know the intention of a lesson expend precious time and energy trying to figure out what their teachers expect them to learn.  

A  shared learning target unpacks a "lesson-sized" amount of learning - the precise "chunk" of the particular content students are to master.   It describes exactly how well we expect them to learn it and how we will ask them to demonstrate that learning.  

When writing learning targets, answer the three questions from a student's point of view:

1. What will I be able to do when I've finished this lesson?

2. What idea, topic, or subject is important for me to learn and understand so that I can do this?

3. How will I show that I can do this, and how well will I have to do it?

Learning targets have no inherent power.  They enhance student learning and achievement only when educators commit to consistently and intentionally sharing them with students.  Meaningful sharing requires that teachers use the learning targets with their students and students use them with one another.  The level of sharing starts when teachers use student-friendly language - and sometimes model or demonstrate what they expect - to explain the learning target from the beginning of the lesson, and when they continue to share it throughout the lesson.