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How important is it to post learning goals and use a scale to help your students gauge their understanding?

  • Sept. 30, 2012, 5:36 p.m.

Today during model writing lessons, I used a scale with all classes to help them assess their understanding at the beginning of the lesson (right after I shared the learning goal) and then again at the end of the lesson. Students really seemed to stay more focused on the specific writing goal and what they needed to know and do to meet expectations. (And speaking as a chronic ADD teacher who can loose my train of thought easily-this really helped me to keep the lessons focused on what needed to be learned. I will never teach another lesson without posting the learning goal and using a scale for providing feedback to students.

learning goals partners

Third grade revising lesson-This is a common core writing goal. After the lesson, the students worked in pairs to offer suggestions for revising using the 5 senses anchor chart.

learning goals

Revising partners were established prior to the lesson.

Here is another learning scale that a 4th grade teacher shared with me. I like the explanations. When using a scale, it is important to use the wording of the learning goal or objective when having your students use it to assess their current status. I had students write their current status on their papers or with a show of hands after I stated the scale relative to the goal.

learning goals scale

Happy teaching,
Kelly Harmon