SUPPORTING STUDENTS DURING
INSTRUCTION
“We spend a lot of time trying to
remediate students who have failed
or are failing our classes. I often
wonder why we don’t take that
energy we use addressing failure by
doing what we can to prevent
failure in the first place.”
Mindsteps, August 18, 2010
Staff Development Learning Targets
I can…
• recognize when a student is undergoing a
constructive or destructive struggle in my class
• write learning targets for the objective I am
teaching.
• write criteria for success for each of my
learning targets.
• determine red flags for each of my
criteria for success
3
3
Researchers say…
How will you help those who
falter during instruction?
Use Text Rendering Protocol
Group Activity: Categorizing
1. Your group will be given a paper with ten
statements.
2. You are to discuss each statement and decide if
it fits a student who is undergoing destructive
struggling or constructive struggling with their
classroom studies.
3. Put a check in the box of your choice beside the
statement. Write a brief supporting statement in
the next box. Be prepared to share your
choices.
Constructive vs. Destructive Struggle
Destructive Struggle
• Leads to frustration.
• Makes learning goals seem
out of reach and further
effort feels pointless.
• Feels fruitless.
• Leaves students feeling
abandon.
• Creates since of inadequacy.
Constructive Struggle
• Leads to understanding.
• Makes learning goals feel
attainable and effort
worthwhile.
• Yields positive results.
• Leads students to feelings of
empowerment and efficacy.
• Creates a since of hope.
Learning Targets
• Are student-friendly descriptions of what
the students are to learn.
• Learning targets are designed to be
taught in one to two lessons.
• Targets must be measureable.
• Targets must be written in language
students can understand.
• Targets should allow for scaffolding?
Handout
Learning Target vs.
Instructional Objective
Videos
• Elementary: Sharing Clear Targets
https://center.ncsu.edu/nc/
• High School: High School Learning
Targets
https://center.ncsu.edu/nc/
How to Develop a Learning Target
• Determine your Standard or Objective.
• Identify the essential part(s) of each objective that
you want your students to learn—these are your
targets.
• Design a strong performance of understanding—
these are thinking skills and applying new knowledge
• Write the learning targets in language students can
understand.
• Students should be able to use I can
statements.
Activity
Identifying Learning Targets
Criteria for Success
• The criteria for success focuses on what
students will be doing during the learning
process.
• The criteria for success provides an
understanding of what quality work
should look like.
• The learning targets should be met after
achieving the criteria for success.
Video
Middle school example
https://center.ncsu.edu/nc/
Name ________________________________
Learning Target:
I can name the place value of a digit
in a given number.
Date covered: _____________
Date ___________
Unit 6
Criteria for Success: I will write the
number in a place value chart by
lining up the decimals. I will look at the
column for the digit to identify the
place value.
Learning Target:
I can write a decimal to represent the
shaded part of a whole.
Date covered: ______________
Notes and Examples:
Thousandths
(1/1000)
Hundredths
(1/100)
Tenths (1/10)
.
Ones (1)
Tens (10)
Hundreds
(100)
Thousands
(1000)
Notes and Examples:
Write the number.
Criteria for Success:
I will look at the number of pieces in
the whole. If the number of pieces in
the whole is ten, I will write the number
with the last digit in the tenths place. If
the number of pieces in the whole is
100, I will write the number with the last
digit in the hundredths place.
Formative Assessment Plan
Grade/Subject: 8th Grade/Exploring Business Technologies
Objective: Interpret supply and demand graphs
Learning Target
Criteria for Success
I can discuss how supply and
demand are related and how they
affect the price of goods.
I can find and interpret the market
price and quantity exchange on a
supply and demand graph.
I can interpret supply and demand
graphs for various situations.
1.
2.
Formative Assessment
Red Flag
I will communicate how supply and
demand are affected as the price
of goods change. (increase,
decrease, or stay the same).
I will develop a supply and demand
graph and interpret the market
price and the quantity exchanged
on the graph.
I will interpret the supply and
demand graphs in the Changing
Price of Corn activity by locating
the market price on the
accompanying graphs and
discussing the effect of supply and
demand on the price of corn.
I will identify the relationship
between supply and demand and
the cost of the product.
What misconceptions do you think students might have?
What will you do to address the misconceptions to move learning forward (e.g., how will you adjust instruction, what descriptive feedback will you
provide)?
Group Activity
• Using Criteria for Success, how can
you determine when a student needs
help?
• Write a potential “Red Flag” for one
of the learning targets.
Red Flags
• “Red Flags” are early-warning signals that
students are headed for a destructive struggle
and should be:
–
–
–
–
very clearly defined
hard to ignore
trigger action
focused only on academic concerns, not student
behaviors.
• Example: Students that miss more than 2
problems on a 10 problem math test.
RED FLAGS WORKSHEET
What do we want
our students to
learn?
What do we want
our students to
know?
LEARNING TARGET
CRITERIA FOR
SUCCESS
How will we know
How will we
they are learning it? respond when they
don’t learn it?
ASSESSMENT
MEASURE
RED FLAG
BASELINE