Learning Intentions and Success
Criteria
Oslo Workshop, 30 November 2010
Professor Gordon Stobart
Institute of Education University of
London
Assessment for Learning
Assessment for Learning is the process of
seeking and interpreting evidence for use by
learners and their teachers
to decide where the learners are in their learning,
where they need to go and
how best to get there.
Assessment Reform Group (2002)
Quality AfL keeps learning principles central – the
spirit – ‘high organisation based on ideas’.
Finding out where learners are
‘The most important single factor influencing learning is what
the learner already knows’
(D.Ausubel)
Diagnostic assessment:
- listen to reading
- classroom work
- test information
Questioning:
- misconceptions
- rich questions
- wait time
- traffic lights
Would putting a coat on a snowman help to stop it melting?
Knowing where learners need to go: Clear
learning intentions (1)
The teacher is clear about what is being learned
(progression in learning)
What we will be learning rather than what we will be
doing
Cognitive challenge: a problem to be solved: ‘The
teacher presents the pupils with a situation which
they cannot tackle with their existing cognitive
structure’.
(Standards Site)
Knowing where learners need to go: Clear
learning intentions (2)
The importance of ‘tuning in’ (building on ‘where
learners are in their learning’)
setting the scene (why we are learning this),
explaining the situation,
linking to what is known,
unfamiliar words & phrases explained (‘scale’)
Tuning in (1)
The procedure is actually quite simple. First you
arrange the items into different groups. Of course one
pile may be sufficient depending on how much there
is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack
of facilities, that is the next step; otherwise you are
pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things.
That is, it is better to do too few things rather than too
many. In the short run this may not seem too
important but complications can easily arise. A
(Bartlett)
mistake can be expensive as well.
Tuning in (2)
‘We ask kindergartners, “What is the sound of
the letter at the end of the word?,” forgetting
that many of them are unclear about the
concepts letter, word, sound (as it applies to
speech), and end (which requires knowing
that letters are ordered left to right), and do
not know that letters bear a complex
relationship to speech sounds’. (P. Johnston)
Knowing where learners need to go: Success
criteria – understanding what is needed
Royce Sadler’s paradox: why does thoughtful feedback
often not work?
Success criteria need:
- Negotiation
- Exemplars
- Modelling
The importance for self and peer assessment
Learning outcomes – England, English writing
Level 4 (11 year olds)
The need for exemplars, modelling and negotiation to
‘make sense’
Pupils' writing in a range of forms is lively and
thoughtful. Ideas are often sustained and developed in
interesting ways and organised appropriately for the
purpose of the reader. Vocabulary choices are often
adventurous and words are used for effect. Pupils are
beginning to use grammatically complex sentences,
extending meaning. Spelling, including that of
polysyllabic words that conform to regular patterns, is
generally accurate. Full stops, capital letters and
question marks are used correctly, and pupils are
beginning to use punctuation within the sentence.
Handwriting style is fluent, joined and legible. (QCDA,
2010)
Clear learning intentions and success criteria
We Are Learning To:
Create ‘mood-setting’ in writing through our
descriptions.
(Task: Write an opening paragraph that describes a place
in a way that sets the mood for a story.)
How will we know we’ve done this?
We will be able to recognise the mood the writer was
creating.
The wind howled thrugh the stretes and the
rain bownced of the pavements. The few people
who were out huried head down from doorway to
doorway. All escept one man who, coatless
and upright carried a big wet bag.
Identify three achievements and one action point
The Goldilocks’ Principle
The specification of learning intentions and success criteria
has to be:
•Not too vague – ‘It’s not that I haven’t learnt much. It’s
just that I don’t really understand what I’m doing’. (15 yr
old)
Harris (1995)
•Not too detailed – behaviourist micro-teaching:
“assessment as learning, where assessment procedures
may come completely to dominate the learning
experience and ‘criteria compliance’ come to replace
‘learning’”
Torrance (2007)
•But just right – clarity of purpose, flexible, negotiated,
allows some choice and personal autonomy
AfL in practice: teaching Sudoku
...and how best to get there.
Feedback
‘Provides information which allows the learner to close the gap
between current and desired performance’
It is most effective when:
• It is effectively timed;
•It is clearly linked to the learning intention;
• The learner understands the success criteria/standard;
• It focuses on the TASK rather than the learner (self/ego);
• It gives cues at appropriate levels on how to bridge the
gap: the task/process/self-regulation loop;
•It offers strategies rather than solutions;
• It challenges, requires action, and is achievable.