Writing an Effective Learning Intention

0:09 Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of The Road to an Effective Classroom Environment. I am your host, Dr. Lashant, also known as that Classy Sassy Consultant. And today we are looking at the topic writing an effective learning intention. And this is one of the most important parts of lesson design, but sometimes this is the part that gets overlooked or is not done thoroughly, so that student learning is the focus. So by the end of this episode, you will be able to define what a learning intention is and identify key components and start writing your own with clarity and purpose.

1:01 So in the last episode, the last episode was about visible learning in the CTE classrooms. And so this is a it's almost like a part two. It's almost a 1.5-ish. But this topic ties in well with the last episode. But keep in mind that the learning intention does not have to be just for the CTE classroom. So the learning intention, success criteria, which we talked about in the last episode, those two go together. This is not just for the CTE classroom, it is for any classroom environment. So this episode is for any classroom environment.

1:45 But just as always, if you hit listen to any episode in which this says that it's just specific for a particular area, keep in mind that a lot of those uh topics, a lot of what is discussed, it can carry over into another realm. So just keep that in mind. This podcast is very flexible when it comes to the type of uh teaching and uh learning that is given in the broadcast. Okay. So we're looking at writing and effective learning intention. So the learning intention, it answers the critical question of what do I want students to learn?

2:31 It's not just about what students are going to do, but it's about what do I want the students to learn by the end of the lesson. The learning intention is focused on learning and not the activity or the task that the students are involved in. So I can remember when I was in the classroom as a social studies teacher, and we had objectives. And many states and districts, uh, school districts, they still go by learning objectives. A learning intention is different from an objective in that, again, it focuses on what we want the students to learn.

3:17 An objective will give you uh topics that will be covered, but it doesn't focus on how that topic is going to be learned by the students. That is the difference. So I can remember in the classroom writing objectives on the board was required to have the objectives written out along with the um standards or indicators if I was teaching a class that had those, uh, because I did teach a class that did not have a book. We had a resource uh whenever I was um uh teaching uh ninth graders. And uh we had a book as a focus, but it it wasn't a state course um per se that had state standards, um, but it was a freshman focus.

4:08 It was a class to help students, and so we focused on Stephen Covey's highly um seven highly effective habits, but that was the book for that class. There were no indicators for that, so there wasn't an expectation to have that on the board. But as a classroom teacher, I remember having the objectives, having to write those up, also having to have an agenda. And an agenda focuses on what task from the time that you come in the classroom until you end, what tasks the students are doing. Now, is that information important?

4:39 Of course it is. It is important to know as a classroom teacher what you want your students to do while they're in that classroom setting for either that class period, or it may be something that's going to carry on until the next day, or it may carry over the next um week or month if you're doing any type of project-based learning. So agendas are fine, agendas are good, but that is more so and should be more so, in my professional opinion, so more so for the teacher and staying on task and what it is that she wants the students to be able to do.

5:16 The learning intention focuses on what the students are going to learn by the end of that lesson. So, for example, here's an example of a task that could be written or an activity that might be a part of an agenda. You may have it, and this could also be an attempt, someone's attempt to write it, writing a learning intention, because I've seen some learning intentions written like this. So, this is an example of what is not a learning intention. Students will complete a worksheet on ecosystems. That is not a learning intention because it focuses on a task, and the task is the students completing that worksheet.

6:03 Just because the students complete the worksheet does not mean the student has learned anything about ecosystems. And also, what is it on that worksheet that students are going to learn about ecosystems? Is it just that ecosystems exist? What are the details? So that's not a learning intention. To write this in an effective learning intention, or as an effective learning intention, you could say, we are learning to explain how living and non-living things interact within an ecosystem. That is an effective learning intention because it focuses on the students, they're going to be able to explain how living and non-living things interact within an ecosystem.

6:53 Very, very visible, visible learning. And according to John Hattie, in his book, Visible Learning, when students understand what they're learning and why their progress can double. And that's important. That is the power of clarity. And I in the last episode, I touched on clarity. We're gonna talk about what teacher clarity is and uh go into some more detail, and that way you can see the entire picture when it comes to visible learning because teacher clarity was uh one of John Hattie's uh first uh concepts and ideas that was shared, or at least that I learned about before transitioning into uh learning about visible learning.

7:39 Okay, so now let's take a look at um what makes a learning intention effective. Let's unpack that. So there are three ways to know whether or not your learning intention is effective. The three things are there is a learning focus, a purpose, and then looking at the language of it. So let's let's break each one of those things down. Learning and focus. The learning focus is about what concept or skill is being learned. What is it that the students are learning? What is the skill? What is the concept that they will learn by the end of that lesson?

8:26 The purpose is, of course, why does it matter? And this is given this is given clarity as to the reason why this particular skill or concept is being learned. And it goes far deeper than you're learning this for a state test. It goes far deeper than you're learning this so you can get, you can earn the credit for this course so that you can graduate high school or move from one grade to the next. The purpose goes back into the um the concept or skills and why it is being learned. And it goes deeper than just those things I just said.

9:08 It goes deeper than just the surface, those surface values. Now, that is not to demean getting a high school diploma, getting going from one grade to the other, because we know that that's important as our students they transition from grade to grade. But when you focus the learning around and you give them an authentic purpose that will help them to understand an authentic purpose, why does this matter? Because our students will come to us and say, I'm never gonna use that, I'm never gonna use this in my life.

9:45 And there were times in which, as a student, I said that.

10:00 Many times my answer was because you need this for the next, this builds to the next chapter, to the next chapter. And they would be like, Oh no, no, no, no, Miss Sarvis. I I need to know why I need to know this. I I'm not gonna do that. With I'm going into something else. And so then it became the it became uh a conversation. I would have conversations with students and tell them that you, even though right now you think you may want to be a doctor or you think you may want to own your own business and um be have your own mechanic shop, you may think that that's what you want to do, but you don't know.

10:38 So you learn everything that you're given in school because there may be something in this learning process in all of these content areas, in the core contents and in your elective classes, you may find something that you like. And if you did not spend time to learn it, then you may have to go back just to make sure that you got that foundation. So, all of this is information, it's foundational knowledge in many different arenas of careers and just life living, that you will need to know this information.

11:16 So that's how I would explain the purpose. But getting back, uh, the second component of an effective learning intention, that purpose, why does this matter? And then the third uh component is the language. You want to make sure that your learning intention is student-friendly and action-oriented. What will the students be doing as far as how they will be doing the learning? Are they explaining? Are they analyzing? Are they critiquing? Are they comparing and contrasting? So, student-friendly, action-oriented language.

11:54 Those are the three uh three concepts that help to make a learning intention effective. So here's an example of how to put all of that together. So let's say that we're looking at um an English concept, the learning focus. Let's say the concept we're looking at uh main idea and nonfictional text. So let's put that in a um, let's start the learning intention off by um focusing on the concept or skill that's going to be learned. That was the first, the learning focus. So we are learning to identify the main idea in a nonfiction text.

12:37 That's the learning focus. The skill is identifying main idea, nonfiction text. All right. So when we add the purpose, so let's say the purpose is so that we can summarize information accurately and build comprehension skills. All of those, those two sentences, or it's one sentence and it's broken down into two parts. So both of those uh phrases are student-friendly and they're action-oriented. So when we put it all together, the learning, uh, the learning intention is we are learning to identify the main idea in a nonfiction text so that we can summarize information accurately and build comprehension skills on point.

13:30 You want to start your learning intention with we are learning. And the we is not just the students, but the teacher is involved as well. Now, does this teacher already know this information? Of course, but we should we start off by saying we are learning too because this is the it's the teacher's classroom, the teacher is guiding this, um, is the facilitator of the um instruction, and they are doing it together. Because sometimes there are things that as educators, as classroom teachers, we may learn even while we're teaching.

14:05 There is something that may come out of our teaching. We may learn something either about ourselves or about our students. So that's one tip is to make sure you start your learning intention off with we are learning. And then when you're saying, uh, when you start off with that, with that phrase, it helps, as I said, it helps with a shared um ownership of learning because again, as the teacher in that classroom, you learn about yourself and you may learn more about your students. So it's a learning process all around.

14:41 Students are learning as well as you are learning. So we look we're looking at learning intention, but we can't talk about learning intention without touching on success criteria just a little bit. So if you were with us in the last episode, the success criteria it focuses on how we will learn what we've learned. So, how will we know that we have learned what we need to know? So let's take a look at a let's say we're looking at um, we're still gonna stay with the English topic, or this could be a topic within a theater class or um character education.

15:27 Um, if you're looking at um individuals, um, but uh let's take a look at this learning intention and what the success criteria would be that would go along with it. So, the learning intention is we are learning to analyze character development. Okay, we are learning to analyze character development. So, what could some success criteria be with that? You want to keep your success criteria down to two to three. You don't want to have too many, and we're gonna talk about what are some pitfalls whenever we are um creating our learning intentions um along with our success criteria.

16:10 So, our learning intention again, just to restate, we are learning to analyze character development. So, a possible success criteria could be I can describe how the character changes, I can use text evidence to support my explanation. So this success criteria aligns with the learning intention because the intention is about character development. A part of character development is looking at the changes within the character, using uh text evidence to support that explanation that goes deeper into analyzing the character whenever you can put text support or text evidence to your explanation.

16:59 So, this is a very sound, um, these are sound success criteria that aligns with that learning intention. So let's look at the pitfalls and let's talk about what are some mistakes that we can make or that could be made when you're writing uh these learning intentions and success criteria. And I've seen this um in classrooms and I've seen just looking through various examples of when I went through um uh training and um staff development on uh visible learning. If you have learning intentions that are confusing, um they're confusing because you have too many.

17:46 That's that's one confusion. When you have too many, then uh it can throw the focus off for the students as far as what they're actually going to be doing today. So having um confusion also could be if you are focusing so much on what you want the students to be able to do as far as the activities that you have involved for them, um, that you have for them, uh confusing the task and thinking the task is the learning. The task is not the learning, the task is the end product, and it can um spotlight what the learning that the student has learned, but the task itself is not the learning.

18:33 So, one common mistake is confusing tasks with learning. Also, if you are using uh verbs like understand or know that are not uh words that are very descriptive as to what you want the students to do. And this even goes back. Um, I can remember when I was um in the classroom where understand and know were acceptable. Uh they were there are words that are in Bloom's taxonomy, they're D Ok one. Uh and understand can be a D-OK two if it's paired with a another another verb. So you you want to make sure that you stay away from stay away from words that are more of the D-O-K ones, unless you're pairing it with another, um, whether it's a DOK2 or DOK uh three verb.

19:31 And of course, we do have DOK levels, um, Bloom's taxonomy, it does go up to D-O-K 4 when you're talking about evaluate, synthesizing, creating that type of thing. So make sure that your verbs are not vague. And if you have a verb, if you're going to use words like um understand, pair it with another, with another D-OK level um verb that's a two or a three. Also, if you are older, overloading your lessons with multiple intentions, if you have more than two learning intentions, then um that can be a lot of content.

20:13 And you may be thinking, okay, well, I have um two hours in class, I have a two-hour class. If you have a two-hour class, you can still focus on one intention and um you can still get through what you need to get through with three success criteria. Um, I know that in some, and two hours is um you may be thinking, oh, that's more college-like. And there are there are, of course, you have some college courses that may be two hours, but this this is uh more so CTE. There are some CTE classrooms that are two hours long, and so there is that um the best way to put it, there is that temptation to do more in that time frame.

21:04 But again, you have to be strategic about that process. And um, in CT in CTE classrooms that have that are two hours long, or if you have um block scheduling that are an hour and a half, you really have to be strategic as far as what you're doing because you still don't want to teach. Um, do have you still don't want to have more than uh 20 or 30 minutes of direct instruction. If you are going over 20 or 30 minutes of lecture time, direct instruction, then you are um you are gonna lose the students.

21:37 You you can lose the students because they need to be engaged, they need to put their hands on things, manipulate uh items, be able to talk to one another, share, reflect. So just be mindful about how long direct instruction goes. Um, because there is always that temptation to try to go longer if the class is more than 50 or 60 minutes. And so again, some of those pitfalls, just to reiterate, confusing the task with um learning, confusing task with learning, using vague verbs like understand or know, and overloading the lessons with multiple intentions.

22:17 So something that you can do, look back at some of your own lesson plans. If you are a classroom teacher, go back to some of your lesson plans and pick one of your objectives or one of the uh concepts that you taught and see if you can rewrite it as a clear learning intention. Do some practice with this. Now, do you have to be in a school or a district where visible learning is is uh the focus or the district initiative? You don't have to. Now, of course, if you're in a district where there are where you are being required to do certain things, then by all means make sure you follow what your school, um, your school or your school district is asking that you do.

23:08 But you can also do some um education on your own and understanding visible learning. Um, look at it, talk about it with your your principal, with your instructional coaches. And if you're not a visible learning district, you might want to look at this concept because it is very powerful knowledge and is very powerful for uh the students in a student-centered um environment. So just some things to think about. Um, but if you wanted to practice this, that's one thing you can do is go back to an old lesson plan or last week, a month ago, anything, any concept, and practice writing a clear learning intention and see just what that, you know, what does it look like?

23:50 Compare the verbiage of what you write for that learning intention um base and compare it to what you you've written before without having this knowledge about um visible learning, learning intention, success criteria. All right. So as we are coming to a close uh for this episode, just want you to also kind of just think about some things. And um, so this is a uh a coaching challenge that I put out um to you. Uh, we I just talked about you looking back over your lesson plans and rewriting a clear learning intention.

24:28 So, just to give you some things to um to think about while you're doing that. Um, once you've looked at that lesson, uh you may want to use the the same lesson plan for these next steps that I'm gonna share. When you write your learning intention, make sure that you start off with the we are learning to. Then make sure that you add, after you've gotten that learning intention and it's clear and you've um gone up, you have the learning focus, you've talked about the purpose and the language is student-friendly.

25:05 Once you've written that, then make sure that you add two to three success criteria in which you start off with I can, those I can statements. And my challenge to you is share this with your students and get their feedback and see what they think. See if they feel that the learning that they are more engaged in the learning when they have a learning intention and success criteria listed. Look to see how the engagement changes. You might want to uh do a trial run once you've written your learning intention, success criteria.

25:48 Let's say you want to do it for one lesson. Do a trial run, put it up on the board. Um, make sure that you refer back to it throughout the lesson. So that's another part of visible learning that I talked about in that last episode is making sure that a part of this is not just putting something nice and pretty up on the board and you're saying something about it one time, but it's about going back to that, those concepts and going back to what you've written so that students are reminded this is what we are going to learn today.

26:19 This is what you should be able to do by what you should know by the end of the lesson. This is what you should know by the end of the lesson. Um, so make sure that you refer back to those things. You might, as I said, doing a trial run, put up um your learning intention, success criteria, and then get feedback from the students and ask them, how did the learning today feel? Was there any difference in what we did today versus last week? And you will be surprised in some of the responses from your students.

26:58 So put it to practice, try it out. I would love to hear how everything goes. So if you would like to share and uh let me know it that you did a trial run and how it worked out, then uh share with me. My email address is lashant6 at gmail.com. That's L-A-S-H-A-W-N-T-E, the number six at gmail.com. I would love to hear your stories about your success and any pictures that you want to share of um what you did with your students. This would be um this would be an awesome thing just to hear some of the feedback on from this episode.

27:39 So as we close out, just keep in mind that when we clarify the learning for our students, that we are empowering their success. We are empowering our students' success when we clarify the learning. So this is the road to an effective classroom environment. Um, if you want to follow me on any of my social media, you can go to my website, leadjanesconsultinglc.com, and you will find um find my Instagram and Facebook, um my Twitter account information. So you can follow me there and keep up and see what the classy sassy consultant is doing, and also LinkedIn.

28:28 So until next time, stay classy, stay sassy, and keep leading with purpose. Have an awesome week.