THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEARNING GOALS AND ACTIVITIES

Learning Goals

Learning Goal

What will I do to establish and communicate learning goals, track student progress, and celebrate success?

Where am I going? Where am I now? How do I close the gap?

Definition of Learning Goal

A learning goal is a statement of what students will know or be able to do:

Students will describe ___________

Students will solve _______________

Distinguish between Activity and Goal

Students will distinguish between the learning target and the task or assignment:

The learning target is the goal—what you want the students to know or be able to do

The task or activity is what the students will do to demonstrate understanding.

An Example

Goal: Students will describe the current events in Egypt.

Activity: Students will search the web for information on demonstrations in Alexandria, Egypt. Students will then write a descriptive essay on what they found in their online research.

Examples you used this week

Action Steps

1. Make a distinction between learning goals and learning assignments or activities.

2. Write a rubric or scale for each learning goal.

3. Have students identify their own goals.4. Assess students using a formative

approach.5. Have students chart their progress on

each learning goal.6. Recognize and celebrate growth.

Using Feedback Effectively

The most powerful single moderator that enhances achievement is feedback.

This means providing …information how and why the child understands and misunderstands and what directions the student must take to improve.

• *JOHN HATTIE –META-ANALYSIS OF META-ANALYSES DRAWN FROM 53,0000 STUDIES WITH MORE THAN 83MILLION STUDENTS

Feedback is most powerful when it is from the student to the teacher.

Effective Feeedback

The effect of a system of quality, formative, descriptive feedback is more than one standard deviation.

In other words, a student who performs at the 50th percentile in an environment without a system of effective feedback would achieve at above the 84th perceentile with effective feedback.

Example

Here’s acompleted task.What could bethe learningtargets?

Review—Goal(learning target) or Activity

Learning Target or Activity? 1. ___ Read 217‐224. Answer questions on 224 2. ___ Identify four major outcomes of the Industrial

Revolution. 3. ___ Complete questions on the Industrial Revolution. 4. ___ Solve 12 problems with your partner. 5. ___ Solve a variety of simple equations with one variable. 6. ___ Lab write up from “Sink or Float” lab. 7. ___ Understands and can explain the relationship among

surface area, mass, displacement and buoyancy. 8. ___ Read all of “Romeo and Juliet” 9. ___ Can explain the core components of a tragedy

Rubrics

Percentage?Letter grade?4 point scale?Multiple scores? Single Score?Norm reference?Feedback?Proficient or advanced?Criterion referenced?

Feedback occurs when teachers feedinformation back to students in a matter thathelps them to learn better, or when studentare taught to engage in a similar self‐reflectionprocess.

Types of Feedback

Types of Feedback from Hattie and Timperley (2007)

--Rank order in effectiveness

1. Feedback about the task(describes specific attributes of the performance)

2. Feedback about strategies/processing(describes effectiveness of what was done or could have been done)

Types of Feedback Continued

3. Feedback about self‐regulation(describes components of self‐evaluation or confidence related to task

4. Feedback about the person(describes the learner as “good” “bad” or “smart”)

General or vague feedback “nice work” even if about the task, is not as effective as specific feedback.

Praise—Brophy, 1981

• Uses students’ own prior accomplishments as thecontext for describing present accomplishments

• Attributes success to ability alone or to externalfactors such as luck or simplicity of task

• Focuses student’s attention on their own task relevantbehavior and how that behavior (or strategy) can improve learning.

• Provides information about status or ranking but does not provide information about specific components of the performance.

• Attributes success to how smart or talented thestudent is at something.

Which were more and less effective….

Examples of Descriptive Feedback

• Each paragraph should have one main idea. Your topic sentences have a clear main idea and are supported by relevant details.

• Your answers clearly support the main idea of this lab. Where did you find these details?

• You are writing with much more relevant detail in your answers on this assignment than in the past.

• Your answers continue to get stronger. You are effectively developing this skill.

• Each paragraph should have one main idea. Your main ideas are not clear to me. Please circle the main idea in each paragraph and return to metomorrow.

Timing and Amounts of Feedback

• Feedback timed closely to completing thelearning task.

• Feedback on almost all aspects of the assignmentincluding almost all errors.

• Feedback after the unit is complete.• Selected feedback on important learning targets.• Voluminous comments on poor‐quality work and

almost no comments on high‐quality work.--Brookhart 2008

Student Self-Assessment

Name _____________________________________ Unit _________________________Performance Skill _____________________________________________________________________1. Self Rating:

1Beginning 2Developing 3Approaching Mastery

2. Evidence of my ability to use this skill can be seen by my completion of:…

3. Some of the key steps in completing this skill are…

4. An area where I could work on to improve my speed or accuracy using this skill is….

Beginning – This skill is new to me. I need to put forth additional effort or change my strategy to develop my ability to use this skill.

Developing – I am making progress in using this skill. I’m using an effective strategy for learning this skill and with additional effort will progress toward mastery.

Approaching Mastery – I can use this skill to perform more effectively or efficiently. By using this skill effectively and efficiently, I can work to create quality products.

Peer Assessment

Tips for “Goals, Progress, Success”

• Get focused; design lessons to focus less.

• Expect student knowledge/skill to shift across introduction, developing, hypothesis testing.

• Develop systems where on‐going reflection, feedback to the teacher, and self‐assessment are part of curriculum, instruction, assessment.

• Align reporting tools to learning targets and emphasize learning goals.

• Provide time to engage in these powerful strategies.

• Provide time to pause, acknowledge & celebrate