Big Ideas, Learning Goals &
Success Criteria
Backward Planning meets
Assessment for learning
Big Ideas
• 4 or 5 overall concepts, theories, skills or ideas
that resonate in the discipline
• Uncovered from curriculum document
preambles and overall expectations
• May have cross-curricular or real-life quality
• Written in phrases
• Include the “must-take-from-the-course” material
• Tied to the Culminating Tasks/final assessments
Essential Questions
• Big Ideas phrased in student-friendly
language
• Used as anchors for the course units and
lessons to follow.
• Are the great organizers of the material
• Should be displayed prominently in the
classroom so they can be accessed to
focus students and answer the “why are
we doing this?” questions.
Learning Goals
• Brief statements that describe for a student what
he or she should know and be able to do by the
end of a period of instruction (e.g., a lesson,
series of lessons, or subtask).
• The goals represent subsets or clusters of
knowledge and skills that the student must
master to successfully achieve the overall
curriculum expectations (and Big Ideas).
from Growing Success Glossary
Where are Learning Goals
mentioned in Growing Success?
As essential steps in assessment for learning and as learning,
teachers need to:
• plan assessment concurrently and integrate it seamlessly with
instruction;
• share learning goals and success criteria with students at the outset of
learning to ensure that students and teachers have a common and
shared understanding of these goals and criteria as learning
progresses;
• gather information about student learning before, during, and at or near
the end of a period of instruction, using a variety of assessment
strategies and tools;
• use assessment to inform instruction, guide next steps, and help
students monitor their progress towards achieving their learning goals;
• analyse and interpret evidence of learning
• give and receive specific and timely descriptive feedback about student
learning;
• help students to develop skills of peer and self-assessment.
Big Ideas
Essential Questions
Clarifying learning goals:
•answer the questions “Where are we going?”,
“What are we expected to learn?”
•help identify the curriculum expectations to be
addressed in the learning
•make the learning transparent
•build a common understanding of the learning
• help define quality success criteria
• invite students to take ownership of their learning
• encourage students to reflect on and internalize
the learning.
•State explicitly, in student-friendly language the
goal or goals required for students during that
lesson or series of lessons
WALTs
• Students should think of learning goals as
WALTs…
“we are learning to…”
Teachers phrase them as “students will
be able to…” (performance goals) or
“students will understand…”
(declarative goals)
Differentiating the content
• Our students will be at different points in
their journey on each expectation.
An example
Learning
Goal
Success
criteria
Learning Goals can vary for students
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
WALTs
Know
Describe
Explain
Calculate
Analyse
Link
Order of
difficulty
Success Criteria
• Standards or specific descriptions of successful
attainment of learning goals developed by teachers on
the basis of criteria in the achievement chart.
• Discussed and agreed upon in collaboration with
students and are used to determine to what degree a
learning goal has been achieved.
• Criteria describe what success “looks like”, and allow the
teacher and student to gather information about the
quality of student learning.
• Students use success criteria to make judgements about
the quality of their performance (starts the process of
student self-evaluation)
What Are Success Criteria?
‘… success criteria summarize the key steps or
ingredients the student needs in order to fulfill the learning
intention – the main things to do, include or focus on.’
- Shirley Clarke
Why Are Learning Intentions and
Success Criteria Important?
‘If learners are to take more responsibility for their own learning, then
they need to know what they are going to learn, how they will
recognize when they have succeeded and why they should learn it in
the first place.’
- (An Intro to AfL, Learning Unlimited, 2004)
Learning
Goals
‘What’ and
WALTs
‘Why’
Success Criteria
‘How to recognize success’
WILTs
Co-creating success criteria:
•answer the questions
•“What does successful learning look like?”
•“What are we to look for during the learning?”
•make the success criteria explicit for teachers and
students alike;
•build a common understanding of success;
•lead to descriptive feedback;
•promote self and peer assessment;
•help identify possible next steps;
•lead to individual goal setting;
•empower students to take ownership of their learning;
• helps develop independent learning skills.
Exemplar of a
good product…
Finished
Product
Success
Criteria
WILTs
• Success Criteria can be thought of as
WILTs…
What I am looking for…
Success Criteria –how are they
written?
• Written from a student’s perspective, as if they are telling
you what their work includes that means that it meets the
learning goal
• For example if a Learning Goal is that students should be able to
report on an investigation orally and in writing…
• Then the Success Criteria for writing could be:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
I tell say (or write) what is being reported on.
My report tells what the report is for (or about).
My report gives enough information for the purpose.
My report gives appropriate information for purpose.
My report uses the right form for the type of information (chart, graph, diagram,
description).
My report is accurate (unit, labels, explanations as required).
My report uses terms correctly (defining when needed).
My report is understandable (legible, or audible).
My report is organized (uses ruler for straight lines, labelled diagrams, axes on
graphs)
The words and pictures (diagrams, charts, etc.) in my report work together.
Why are Success Criteria
Important ?
How are Learning Goals and
Success Criteria Implemented?
• Learning Goals should be developed for every
lesson (or related group of lessons) for a course
based on Essential Questions and Big Ideas
• They should be posted in the room for each
lesson
• It may take more than one Learning Goal to
describe the necessary skills and concepts
within an expectation
• Work with students where possible to develop
the success criteria for learning goals and have
them state them.
Ways to communicate Success
Criteria
• Rubrics that include specific language, are not too broad
or do not contain language students do not understand.
The criteria in the rubric should help students by
providing specific descriptive feedback, identifying
concrete next steps, and helping to set individual goals.
• Exemplars of student work with success criteria
identified (best through Teacher Moderation). Show
exemplars of each level.
• Anchor charts – how to’s; “Remember to” charts; things
to avoid the following. Anchors are visual reminders of
success criteria.
• Checklists