Success Criteria
Assessment for Learning
The Difference Between Learning
Goals and Success Criteria
Learning Goals
Success Criteria
• Broad statements
• General intentions
• Describe what is to
be learned
• Connect to “big
ideas” and prior
learning
• Often not
measureable
• Specific
• Concrete
• Describes what
success looks like
when the learning
goal is reached
• Measureable
2 Star & a Wish
Big Idea: Scarcity and economic trade-offs are essential to all economic activity. (Econ 1)
+
Learning Goal
Success Criteria
I can:
Understand the differences between Identify examples of producers within our local
producers and consumers in a market area.
economy.
Define consumer and identify characteristics of
consumers
provide examples of how producers and
consumers are affected by the market economy
FA Strategy
For practice:
• Identify an essential concept or skill from the
Iowa Core you will be teaching.
• Write a learning goal for a lesson you intend to
teach that essential concept or skill.
• Share with a collaborative learning team
member.
• Provide each other descriptive feedback in the
form of 2 Stars & a Wish (2 things you really like
and 1 suggestion or wish)
Understand the ways goods and
services are produced and
distributed.
I can:
identify methods of distribution in today’s global
economy
explain the methods people and governments use
to produce goods and services
identify and explain the affect resources have on
the production of goods
I can:
Understand the influences that affect explain how limited resources create the need for
personal economic choices.
choices.
identify costs and benefits of a choice.
identify and evaluate incentives.
analyze choices and predict consequences.
Example of Learning Goal and Success
Criteria from the Iowa Core
Social Studies, Geography, Grades 6-8
Essential Concept: Understand how geographic and human
characteristics create culture and define regions.
Big Idea: Geographers have developed regions as tools to examine,
define, describe, explain, and analyze the human and physical
environment.
Learning Goal Example:
Understand that geographic
regions define both
convenient and manageable
units upon which to build our
knowledge of the world.
Success Criteria Examples:
I can describe a region by its
defining characteristics.
I can explain how geographers
use regional information.
Learning Goal
The learning goal is
like the target.
It defines, for
students, what
learning is intended.
Success Criteria
These are the arrows
that help the learner
achieve the target
and demonstrate
mastery.
The Difference Between Success
Criteria and Behavioral Objectives
Success Criteria
• I can use the STAR
Notetaking strategy while
listening to another student
present.
• I can describe natural
selection and tell why
variation is important.
• I can recite a poem from
memory.
Behavioral Objectives
• The student will use the
STAR Note Taking strategy
while listening to a student
presentation.
• Students will describe the
process of natural selection
and why variation is
important to the process.
• Students will memorize and
recite a poem.
The use of the terms “success criteria” and “learning
objectives” can be confusing.
Let’s clarify them.
CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING
Sort each statement as a learning goal, success criteria, or
behavioral objective
• The student will identify the main idea in each
paragraph.
• I can check my prediction of the area by measuring
and finding out if some of the shapes are bigger than
others or if they take up the same amount of area.
• The student will understand that paleoclimatological
evidence is analyzed to reveal historical patterns of
warming and cooling on the Earth.
Summary of research by Shirley Clarke, often described as a foremost
authority on the practical application of formative assessment.
THE AIM IS FOR CHILDREN TO ASK
“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO LEARN?”
RATHER THAN “WHAT ARE WE GOING
TO DO?”.