The document provides information about learning targets, which are goals for lessons, projects, and courses written in student-friendly language. It discusses how learning targets break standards into manageable chunks, promote student ownership of learning, and significantly improve student achievement when students can identify their targets. The document outlines benefits like students having tangible goals to work towards. It also discusses common challenges and provides examples of effective versus ineffective learning targets.

1. A Lesson on
Learning Targets
JCHS Pilot’s Lounge
September 2014
Alyson Carpenter, Instructional Partner

2. ON TARGET
Our Learning Targets:
I can….
•understand how learning targets break
down standards into manageable chunks of
information for students.
•describe the effective use of learning
targets and the advocate for their use in
the classroom to promote student
ownership of learning (2.5).
•reflect on current practice (LTs) in my
classroom.

3. ON TARGET
Defined
Learning Targets are goals for lessons, projects, units, and
courses. They are derived from standards and used to
assess growth and achievement. They are written in
concrete, student-friendly language– beginning with “I can”
– shared with students, posted in the classroom, and
tracked carefully by students and teachers during the
process of learning. Students spend a good deal of time
discussing and analyzing them and may be involved in
modifying or creating them.
Leaders of Their Own Learning
~Berger, Rugen, Woodfin p. 21

4. ON TARGET
Benefits
Learning Targets provide students with tangible goals that they
can understand and work toward. Rather than the teacher taking
on all of the responsibility for meeting a lesson’s objectives,
learning targets, written in student-friendly language and frequently
reflected on, transfer ownership for meeting objectives from the
teacher to the student.
This seemingly simple work of reframing objectives written for
teachers to learning targets, written for – and owned by– students,
turns assessment on its head. The student becomes the main
actor in assessing and improving his or her learning.
Leaders of Their Own Learning
~Berger, Rugen, Woodfin p. 21

5. ON TARGET
Students who can identify what
they are learning significantly
outscore those who cannot.
• Robert J. Marzano

6. ON TARGET
Video- The Power of Targets
Writing good learning targets takes time and care, but it is
only the beginning. The practice really gains traction when
students internalize the value of learning targets and use
them to assess their progress.
Leaders of Their Own Learning
p. 41

7. ON TARGET Types
Knowledge Skill Reasoning
Explanation Knowledge,
facts, concepts
to be learned
outright or
retrieved using
reference
materials
Use of
knowledge to
perform an
action;
demonstration
is emphasized
Thinking
proficiencies–
using knowledge to
solve a problem,
make a decision,
plan and so on
Sample Verbs explain,
describe,
identify, name,
list, define, label,
match, choose,
recall,
recognize, select
observe, listen,
perform,
conduct, read,
speak, write,
assemble,
operate, use,
demonstrate,
measure, model,
collect,
dramatize
analyze, compare
and contrast,
synthesize,
classify, infer,
evaluate

8. ON TARGET
Where to Begin: Always with the
STANDARD
Video- How to Create a Learning Target (Lindsey
Whitehouse)

9. ON TARGET
“Learning targets have no
inherent power. They
enhance student learning
and achievement only
when educators commit to
consistently and
intentionally sharing them
with students.”
Educational Leadership - March 2011

10. ON TARGET
Common Challenges
Learning Targets that are…
• Owned by the Teacher, but Not by the Students
• Doing Targets instead of Learning Targets
• Too Complex
• Too Big or Too Small
• Not Used on a Daily Basis
• Based on Lower-Level Thinking & Skills
• Not Linked to a Powerful Context for Learning
• Missing the Heart of the Standards
• Different for Different Groups of Students
Leaders of Their Own Learning
~Berger, Rugen, Woodfin pp. 49-51

11. ON TARGET
Reflection-
Where am I?
Where are we?
Beginning Intermediate Advanced

12. A Mathematics Example
Subject
• Math
• Decimals
Topic
• Page 11 in the book
• Going on a decimal hunt
• I can read decimals and put
them in order
Assignment
Activity
Learning Target

13. Is this a Learning Target?
• Complete a senior project
• Build a bird feeder
• Use a band saw safely
• Analyze a lab report
• Construct a diorama

14. ON TARGET
Sources
• Leaders of Their Own Learning Burger, Rugen, Woodfin
• Expeditionary Learning (Vimeo / LOTOL DVD & book)
• Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom Brookhart & Moss
• Lindsey Whitehouse on YouTube