This is part one of a two-part blogpost on how high-quality learning objectives and success criteria can form a solid foundation for successful teaching and learning across a variety of schools and classrooms.
by Tonia Gibson
In our recent work with schools across the country, each with their own unique contexts and specific improvement goals, my colleagues and I are seeing a common element emerge that has led to a lot of success. It’s when teachers and instructional leaders really focus on gaining clarity and shared understanding about what high-quality learning objectives and success criteria are, and then support teachers to use them consistently.
I’ve seen firsthand how this can be a game changer for students, teachers, and school communities alike. And again, this is working for a variety of schools whose overarching improvement journeys are different from one another.
At times when I’ve first mentioned learning objectives and success criteria to teachers, I’ve gotten some less-than-enthusiastic responses (think eye rolling and crossed arms, for example). However, experience tells me that many of these responses are a result of misunderstanding the strategies themselves, or some well-meant but incorrect use of them.
What are learning objectives?
A learning objective is a brief student-focused, student-friendly description of what students will be learning and why it’s important to them, a “so that” statement written in a student-centered perspective. Sharing and discussing why the learning is important in their real-world context gives students a purpose for the learning, which in turn engages and motivates them to learn.
Consider the following learning objective:
This learning objective clearly communicates to students what they’re going to be learning in this unit and also gives them a why. The ‘why’ could have been written as “so that you can write a convincing argument,” but instead the teacher used their professional knowledge and creativity to make it more engaging and purposeful for their students (I mean, what middle school student doesn’t want to win an argument?).
Let’s look at another example:
Here the teacher has taken what could have been a dry, or even boring purpose (“…so that you can understand statistics in the real world”) and instead gave students a real-life scenario that they are no doubt experiencing—but maybe aren’t yet aware of.
And one more example:
This teacher is providing her students with a call to action, if you will, imploring her students to be the very best observers and problem solvers to help her solve a ‘brain busting’ problem. Incidentally, something I love about this learning objective is that the problem might be something in science, math, or any other subject, demonstrating to students that we can use our observational and problem-solving skills in almost any situation!
Cognitive science tells us that people tend to be most successful in their learning when they are both curious about what they’re going to learn and motivated to learn it. When teachers use their professional knowledge and creativity to craft purposeful, student-focused learning objectives, they’re more likely to provide students with clarity about what they’ll be learning and a reason to care, stoking student motivation and improving the likelihood of successful learning to occur.
What are success criteria? And how do they fit in with learning objectives?
Success criteria are the standards-aligned, lesson-specific skills and knowledge that students need to demonstrate as they progress toward their learning objective. Success criteria fall under and align with the learning objectives, providing students with scaffolded goals and specific ‘look fors’ at each step of the unit or lesson.
For example:
Learning Objective: We’re going to be learning all about working with decimal numbers so that we can do important math (like money!) in our everyday lives.
Success Criteria:
- I can add and subtract decimal numbers.
- I can explain how decimal numbers are like working with money.
- I can teach a peer, step by step, how to solve a decimal problem.
These success criteria support student learning so that they can demonstrate the overall learning objective of working with decimal numbers. And rather than simply completing a worksheet on addition and subtraction of decimals, students are also being challenged to explain their understanding and teach a peer how to add and subtract decimals, which is not only more rigorous, but more engaging for students than just practicing the processes by completing a worksheet.
Why are success criteria great for students?
Providing students with clear indicators of success can support their learning in many ways. Here are a few:
- It can reduce cognitive load and academic anxiety. Providing lesson-by-lesson clarity about what we’re learning tells students what they need to focus on right now (rather than overloading their minds worrying about future things like mid-term exams or end-of-semester projects). This can help lower academic anxiety because now students know that being successful is about what they can do today, not just later on, on a test.
- It helps students learn to reflect and self-monitor their progress. Research confirms that reflecting on learning is essential for successful learning to occur. Success criteria provide students with clear ‘look fors’ that they can use to reflect on their learning while they’re participating in lessons. For example, Can I explain what photosynthesis is in my own words yet?, and Do the similes in my writing add meaning for my reader? or How do I organize what I know so that I can teach another student how to subtract decimals?
- It develops student ownership of and responsibility for their learning. Regular self-reflection using success criteria also supports metacognition and recognition of personal learning needs, strengths, and goals—and that’s a first step toward taking ownership of and responsibility for one’s own learning.
Another great thing about success criteria is that they’re great for our students’ brains. Research in cognitive science shows that when we achieve goals our brains release dopamine, a feel-good chemical that influences our motivation. When students are supported to achieve each lesson’s success criteria, they each get their own hit of dopamine, increasing their likelihood of having positive feelings about their learning and progress, which helps promote and maintain their motivation to learn more.
Why are success criteria great for teachers?
Having clear, standards-aligned, lesson-specific success criteria also helps teachers themselves. For example, it helps teachers identify what specific skills or understanding they really need to focus their instruction and activities on during a lesson or unit. And when teachers work together to collaboratively develop indicators of successful learning, they can more easily create and share lesson plans and common formative assessments, and have team discussions about what worked well and what can be improved next time.
Some other benefits we’ve seen when teachers leverage success criteria effectively include:
- Improved teacher clarity and purpose. Clear, lesson-specific success criteria help teachers (and students) stay on track and focused on the intended outcomes for the lesson, reducing fluff and busy work.
- Less time spent grading worksheets. When teachers use success criteria to collect specific evidence of student learning during lessons (formative assessment) they spend less time ‘grading’ student work on their own time. In fact, one teacher I worked with estimated that they were saving 5 hours each week of their own time by using their success criteria to monitor and track student learning during lessons rather than taking home reams of worksheets to review.
- Building the capacities of individuals and teams. Teachers of like subjects with common success criteria are able to look at student work through the same lens. This allows them to be able to notice cross-classroom trends and outcomes, and discuss how they might re-teach a skill in a different way, or learn from a colleague about what they did to get the observed outcomes.
Sounds easy and common sense, right? But the reality is that it takes thoughtful, reflective, ongoing work to get really good at developing and consistently using high-quality learning objectives and success criteria in the classroom.
In part 2 of this post, I’ll outline some of the challenges that often lead to teachers feeling stuck, and how to overcome them. And I’ll share some examples of what quality learning objectives and success criteria look like in the classroom, and some things school leaders can do to support teachers.
Tonia Gibson is a senior consultant at McREL International who provides schools and districts with coaching, professional learning, and strategic guidance to strengthen educator and leader capacities. She is a co-author of The New Classroom Instruction That Works, Learning that Sticks, and Unstuck: How Curiosity, Peer Coaching, and Teaming Can Change Your School.
