Our Staff

Target Practice in School?

Oct 13

Setting clear targets help students to use the strategies of feedback, self-assessment and goal setting effectively. When we give feedback to students, we are showing them where they are now with respect to where they are headed, but they need to know where they are headed first! It isn’t possible to self-assess when you are not clear about the learning target. Without a clear learning target or learning goal, how can we expect students to set meaningful goals?

Ask your child what they learned in school today and they usually respond with what they did. Can they answer why they did a particular task? An example of a learning goal could be learning to draw a picture as a strategy to solve math problems. Another example of a learning goal could be learning that sentences are complete thoughts. An activity that involves solving problems using pictures or writing complete sentences with the correct punctuation is the means and the learning is the end.

Where do learning targets come from? Well, some students might like to think that teachers just “make them up”. The Alberta Program of Studies provides the intended general and specific learner outcomes that teachers must teach in a given year. Teachers then work to make this language more “student friendly” and may have a learning target presented to students as “I can statements” or “I am learning to” statements. Accompanying the learning target is a more detailed checklist. Students use this list to provide the “proof” that they have met the learning goal. They are encouraged to use this checklist to self-assess their work through-out the learning process.
Next up....what is self-assessment?