Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives... part 4

Okay so some more blogging on Learning Intentions. Year 9 have just started a huge project: "Spoken Language of a Public Figure". Here is an example of an exercise students completed which examined how rapport can be built with the audience. This particular student is getting towards the top of the group. I've also included a close up of my SOLO Taxonomy Learning Intentions for the project:

 

 

 

 

Any feedback concerning my SOLO Learning Intentions is very welcome, please contact me via my Twitter: @teachesliteracy .

Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives...part 3

I modified my creative writing Year 9 Learning Intentions today so that they were aligned with SOLO Taxonomy. The focus was on using a variety of punctuation with accuracy. Here they are:

I found this really difficult to do, because the SOLO verbs don't seem to easily lend themselves to demonstrating correct use of punctuation in my mind. I'm not particularly satisfied with my second Learning Intention and I want to change it, but I don't know how! I need to have a longer think about it; any suggestions for how to improve number 2 would be extremely welcome. You can find me on Twitter! Also I am still, as ever, interested in seeing your Learning Intentions/Objectives!

Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives..... part 2

Continuing from yesterday's post...

This half term Year 7 and 8 have been improving their Literacy by investigating Climate Change and Sustainability. Year 7 and 8 have a NC (English) range of levels from 1a/2c to 3a/4c. Today I began a series of lessons that have the outcome of writing and performing a persuasive speech for the Head to make our school more 'eco-friendly'.

Last night I re-wrote my Learning Intentions for the first sequence of lessons to make them align with Solo Taxonomy. You can see them below:

 

 

I am happy that these are well aligned to SOLO, and because I have done this my Success Criteria and assessment of their understanding/progress is very clear (this is why I like using SOLO so much!)

Here you can see some of the work we've started on over three lessons today. First of all we listed ideas on our brainstorms, and then wrote sentences to explain our reasoning. Imagining and predicting wider impacts will come in future lessons:

 

 

I have also been talking to Natalie Ford on Twitter about SOLO Learning Intentions and she has given me some interesting ideas to think about, which I'm definitely going to develop over the next few weeks:

 

 

 

(Sorry, haven't figured out how to embed Twitter conversations yet...!)

 

I'm still really interested to share Learning Intentions/Objectives and SOLO with anyone else, so if you'd like to share yours with me I'd really appreciate the development opportunity! You can upload them to Twitter and tag me in them!

 

 



Learning Intentions, Learning Objectives...

Currently for in-house CPD we have been reading Embedded formative assessment by Dylan Wiliam. This term we have been focussing on Chapter 3: Clarifying, Sharing, and Understanding Learning Intentions and Success Criteria. I have enjoyed this particular chapter because it doesn't re-invent the wheel; it simply tells you/reminds you what you know already and re-explains the relevance in a clear manner. (As an aside, I think it would make excellent reading for Trainees/NQT's in any subject.)

Following on from this reading I started to really focus on my Learning Intentions, as I realised that they weren't as precise as they could be. I've been teaching a few years now and it wasn't really an area I had visited since my NQT year. When I used 'understand' in an Intention, I knew what I meant by it, and perhaps I did adequately paint a picture of it in my Success Criteria, but I don't think it was actually the correct choice of word to begin with. Can a student really 'understand' in one lesson? I think the term is too broad and imprecise. I've been working to avoid the use of this word. Additionally, I was unhappy with how my context was too closely mixed in with the actual skill I wanted students to learn/demonstrate.

I've put some examples of my revised Learning Intentions below. They are for a Year 9 class (English NC Levels 3a-5c) and are in the context of early preparation for the Information and Ideas GCSE English paper:

I still don't think these are perfect, for a start they aren't aligned with SOLO Taxonomy , which is what I want to be using across my entire Curriculum for 7, 8 and 9, so they do need changing in that regard. Additionally I'm unsure as to whether I like having the Success Criteria mixed in with the Intention in this way; I am leaning towards comfortably accepting this mixture but I do think further scrutiny would do no harm. I do also provide a seperate, more detailed Success Criteria, usually in the form of a tick-sheet to go with the work. (This also easily affords the opportunity for peer, self and teacher assessment as it only needs a few extra columns adding!)

With Year 7 and 8, I tend to use WALT (We Are Learning To) and WILF (What I'm Looking For) a lot more as it seems to help them understand our learning journey/progression a lot easier.

If anyone would like to share their Learning Intentions with me I would be really interested, as I'm always wanting to develop and refine my own! Perhaps you could upload them to Twitter and tag me in them? I would welcome any feedback on my Intentions here, positive or otherwise...! I'd be interested to know if you have students write Intentions down (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, sometimes they're pre-printed on the sheet) and if you always share the Learning Intention with the class or not? I don't always think it is appropriate to, and sometimes it can be insightful not to and then ask "so, what do you think we were learning this lesson then?" for a Plenary!