The Importance of Learning Targets

For roughly three years now, we have been using learning targets in the West Des Moines Community School District. We know that it is a one-word sentence describing what the student will learn, and we do a great job of posting them somewhere in the classroom for the students to see. Most of us even understand that learning targets tie in with our district goal, the Essentials of Effective Instruction (more specifically- how will my students know what they will be learning today).

But just because we know what a learning target is, does that mean we can create an effective, appropriate one for our students? Do we know if the learning target posted for students is what they are supposed to be learning? As teachers, can we write a target that is meaningful to children, and they can describe in their own words? And how do we know if they hit the target by the end of the lesson?

To address these issues, we need to do the following:

• Collaborate with our Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to determine what the students should be learning. By looking at the Common Core (or Iowa Core, or the WDMCS standards and benchmarks), we need to agree on the most important concepts, called power standards, to cover in the course of a year. This will ensure that we create targets based on what the students should be learning.
• Determine how we will know when the students hit the target. As PLCs, we need to decide what it will look like when a student has demonstrated mastery of the content.
• Go above and beyond posting the learning targets in  our classroom. We should ask students to define the learning target in their own words and use formative assessments to gauge their level of mastery.

Constructing meaningful learning targets is no easy accomplishment. It can take years of collaborating, writing, and revising to produce targets that are relevant to students, teachers, administrators, and parents. But it is necessary if we want to create classrooms of intentional, motivated learners.

References:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar11/vol68/num06/Knowing-Your-Learning-Target.aspx

Moss, C. M., & Brookhart, S. M. (2012). Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today's Lesson. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.