1. C h a p t e r 3 – E m b e d d e d f o r m a t i v e a s s e s s m e n t
D y l a n W i l l i a m
Clarity, Sharing, and Understanding Learning
intentions and success criteria
BEN SOSEBEE AND KATHLEEN BURNS

2. Why learning intentions are important
• In 1971 Mary Alice imagined “the view from the
student’s desk”
• “The analogy that might make the student’s view more
comprehensible to adults is to imagine oneself on a ship
sailing across an unknown sea, to an unknown destination.
An adult would be desperate to know where he is going.
But a child only knows he is going to school… Very quickly,
the daily life on board ship becomes all important… The
daily chores, the demands, the inspections, become the
reality, not the voyage, not the destination” (p.51)

3. Why learning intentions are important
• Students do not always have the same ideas as
teachers about what should be going on in the
classroom, in fact often times what is wanted is not
made clear.
• This puts some students at an advantage because
they “already know” what is expected.
• List of presidents vs. a Saints football roster

4. Why learning intentions are important
• 1994, David Tall’s research showed that higher
achieving students were able to work with unresolved
uncertainties about what they were doing compared
to peers who struggled because they were trying to
something much more difficult.
• 4x 4 ½ 43
• Examine the inconsistencies in mathematical notation
• Most students have never noticed the contradictions in mathematical
notation and get through school fine, where as others might be thrown
off or consistently asking “stupid questions”.

5. 1st
evaluation
method
• Once a week discuss what
students liked and disliked about
the topic
2nd
evaluation
method
• Reflective assessment in which
students were introduced to 9
assessment criteria that the teacher
would use to evaluate. Students were
asked to rate their own performance
with 2 criteria and provide a brief
statement and present their work to
their class and peers used the same
criteria to provide feedback.
Why learning intentions are important
• White & Fredickson (1998) reported findings of middle school
science classrooms using 2 different evaluation methods.
Evaluation Results
Pretest Posttest
Lower Higher Lower Higher
1st
method
32 59 39 68
2nd
method
28 52 53 72
The second evaluation method
higher achievers made 20 point
improvements but more
importantly the lower achievers
improved by 25 points, closing
the achievement gap.

6. When are learning intentions useful?
• Many teachers have been mandated to post
learning objectives, this has a haphazard approach
to sharing learning objectives– therefore described as
the “wallpaper objective”.
• It is good for students to know what they will be
learning but it is not beneficial in a formulaic way.
• “Sometimes telling the students where they are going
completely ruins the journey!”
• There are some cases in which you simply must tell your
students what you are learning about before an activity can
begin.

7. When are learning intentions useful?
• Robert Prisg (1991) described that learning objectives are meant to be
definitions of quality yet they actually turn out to be “post hoc
rationalizations of quality”.
• There are various forms of communicating learning intentions with students.
• Teachers should be interested in the students ability to apply their
knowledge to similar problems in different context.
• Focus on the question “What is the students expected to know after the
activity/lesson?” verse “The students will…”
• Giving rules or maxims – structured instructions or rubric ex: lab report
• Develop intentions with students – call co-construction – allows students
to feel that their opinion is valued.

8. Issues in Constructing Learning Intentions
1. Task-specific versus generic scoring rubrics
3. Product-focused versus process-focused criteria
5. Official versus student-friendly language

9. Task-Specific Versus Generic Scoring Rubrics
• A scoring rubric can be task-specific (applied to a
single task), or generic (applied to many tasks).
• Task-specific let’s the student know exactly what to
do, but focuses the student learning too much.
• For summative assessments task-specific rubrics are
appropriate.
• For projects or written responses (student creativity
or thought) generic scoring rubrics are better to use.

10. Product-Focused Versus Process-Focused
• Process-focused is the breaking down of learning
intention into smaller steps.
• For Example: Showing all steps in solving a math
problem.
• Process-focused can create both constraints and
affordances.
• Product-focused only looks at the end product.
• The teacher doesn’t look at how you get there, but
only wants to see that you got the end result.

11. Official Versus Student-Friendly Language
• Official Language is the language found in State
standards.
• Student-Friendly Language is how the teacher changes
or interprets the State standards to help students
understand.
• Student-friendly language will help students to transfer
ideas based on their common language.
• The fall back to student-friendly language is that
standardized assessments will use the official language
(this could hurt whether or not students understand the
questions).

12. Practical Techniques

13. Creating a Rubric
• Show students examples of student work from the
previous year.
• Have students rate and rank the student work in small
groups.
• Use a whole group discussion to come to a class
consensus on student work.
• Create a rubric for the assignment based on student
ratings and rankings.
• This allows students to feel part of the rubric process, while
allowing the teacher to use assignment knowledge to
shape the rubric.

14. Work Comparison Activity
• Using an assignment to have students compare
their own work to excellent work.
• The teacher does not put a concrete grade, but
allows the students to resubmit the assignment after
examining the student work.
• The causes the to intellectually examine excellent
work along with their own work.
• The feedback holds more importance because it is
their own self-reflection, not the feedback of
someone else.

15. Choose-swap-choose
• Students produce several samples of work.
• The teacher has the student choose which sample
they thought was best.
• The student then has a neighbor choose which
sample they thought was best.
• If the two disagree they must discuss why each
individual thought their sample was best.
• This uses self-feedback and peer-feedback.

16. Student Designed Test Questions/Study
Guides
• Students are given a list
of standards or items to
be learned.
• Students must create
test questions with
correct answers.
• Students were also
given the opportunity to
create study guides
with questions based on
standards.
• Students that participated in these
activities knew what they were being
assessed on, and performed at higher
levels.
• This activity can also help teachers
reach those students uninterested in the
subject.
• This method of learning also allows the
teacher to see what students “think they
have been learning”.

17. Conclusion
• We need to be clear with our learning targets.
• We do not need to guide students step by step.
• Allow students to self-assess and peer-assess.
• Allow students to think they have ownership while
still maintaining overall control.