Now, it’s time to get your FRAME on!
CHAPTER 1
How to Create Learning Intentions and Success Criteria
Classroom teachers need to know how to create engaging, exciting, and enthusiastic opportunities for learning, no matter the content area. But in many teacher-preparation programs, teacher candidates spend the majority of their time concentrating on content-specific pedagogies and content background (Martin & Mulvihill, 2017). Teacher-preparation programs tend to emphasize discipline-specific knowledge rather than comprehensive pedagogical expertise. While content-area expertise is undeniably important, as content knowledge is vital for creating positive outcomes on classroom assessments and national standardized tests, you must first focus your students for learning if you expect that content to be explicit and effective.
Designing a structured, engaging, and motivating classroom experience takes practice but does not have to be all-encompassing. Establishing the learning intention and success criteria students will focus on throughout a lesson or unit will help you apply structures and routines that support all students of all abilities. These pieces are the foundation of the lesson, so it is important that you always stay mindful of student learning as you write them. As an essential prelude to the FRAME-specific content in chapters 2–4, this chapter provides foundational information for writing each of these items, as well as important considerations to keep in mind.
Learning Intentions: What Do You Want Students to Understand?
Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey (2018) define a learning intention as “what you want students to know and be able to do by the end of one or more lessons” (p. 82). Think of learning intentions as the building blocks of an overall unit. Crafting a quality learning intention takes planning. Often, teachers will use an activity as their learning intention, but a true learning intention goes beyond an activity. As an example, a learning intention applying an activity might read Students can use think, pair, share to complete the mathematics worksheet. In this particular example, think, pair, share is an activity. It is not the learning intention as it does not establish a skill to learn. Rather, the goal of this poorly constructed learning intention is the completion of the worksheet.
A valid and effective learning intention should focus on the goal of the learning—the thing you want your students to know and do. For example, a well-written learning intention for middle school mathematics might read I can use proportional relationships to solve problems. The teacher might still recommend using think, pair, share so students can work together to solve the problems, or the teacher might distribute a worksheet so students can practice proportional relationships, but the goal of this learning intention is to have students using proportional relationships to solve problems. By using proportional relationships, students are also applying, practicing, and proving what they know and what they are able to do.
When teachers come back from an engaging conference or inspirational workshop, they frequently want to use all they learned to help their students. But giving your students a brand-new graphic organizer or an exciting educational technology tool and asking them to complete it or explore it is also not a learning intention—these tools are merely vehicles meant to enhance the learning. What are students supposed to know and be able to do with the graphic organizer or the educational technology tool? If you are struggling to come up with an answer, you probably have not created a lesson with a clear learning intention.
In addition to establishing a skill to learn, learning intentions should engage and motivate students by giving them one or more questions they want to solve. These questions are more likely to engage students in introspection if they are real, relevant, and relatable to the student. For example, if you are simply asking students to locate the main idea of a text or define a vocabulary word without providing them with context relevant to them, you can assume students will quickly lose interest. Learning intentions are meant to guide student learning. According to Fisher and Frey (2018), “Without a clear learning destination in mind, lessons wander, and students become confused and frustrated” (p. 82). This is why creating an interesting learning intention will help students stay focused and involved in the lesson. In addition, the focus of the day’s lesson should be manageable, or else students may become anxious if they feel they cannot meet the learning intention. “Even the ‘best’ lesson is worthless if students aren’t engaged, or don’t believe they will be able to complete the work” (Rollins, 2015).
As you review your notes for the next day’s lesson, consider what you want your students to know and do with the information you will share. This gets at the heart of the learning intention. It is important to create the learning intention first, then determine the success criteria needed to meet the learning intention, and then create a series of open-ended questions that help engage students in cognitive thinking and empower them to take classroom risks. As educator Paula Denton (2007) writes, “Instead of predictable answers, open-ended questions elicit fresh and sometimes even startling insights and ideas, opening minds and enabling teachers and students to build knowledge together.”
Following are some examples of high-quality learning intentions, loosely derived from the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices [NGA] & Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010a, 2010b), in a variety of content areas and grade levels. Note that the Common Core State Standards are merely a starting point, an inspiration for learning depending upon what the student needs. I have reworded them to create a series of student-friendly I can statements.
• Second-grade mathematics: I can understand the place value of numbers up to 1,000.
• Third-grade reading: I can find and tell the main idea of the texts read in class and share examples with my peers.
• Sixth- to eighth-grade science and technical subjects: I can learn the differences among superstition, pseudoscience, and science.
• Eighth-grade U.S. history: I can discuss, explain, and research the events leading to the American Revolution and their influence on the formation of the Constitution.
• Ninth- and tenth-grade English language arts (ELA): I can understand the role and proper use of figurative language in a narrative.
• Eleventh- and twelfth-grade writing: I can write an argument to support a claim using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
Simply telling students the official standard they need to learn is not nearly enough. Students must be able to grasp the task they are to do and feel that they can do it. Additionally, teachers need the freedom to adapt such standards for the students in front of them. This might involve extending a standard to advance learning further or even dial it back if students are struggling. If the learning intention is not written in a developmentally appropriate way, students will not understand what they are supposed to know and be able to do, and when that happens, engagement will suffer (Moss et al., 2011).
These learning intentions are exemplary because they go beyond basic activities and lead to explanation, discussion, application, and reflection. For example, in the eighth-grade history example, students will focus on the events leading to the American Revolution by discussing, explaining, and researching the influence of the formation of the U.S. Constitution. This learning intention inspires students to use what they have read and researched to engage in interesting discussions.
Conversely, an insufficient learning intention for this topic might read I will study the events leading to the American Revolution and how it led to the formation of the U.S. Constitution.