Office Space: âHello, Peter. Whatâs happening? Listen, are you going to have those TPS reports for us this afternoon?â
School version: âHello, Ms./Mr. _____. Whatâs happening? Listen, are you going to have those learning targets posted this afternoon?â
While you picture your administrator wearing Bill Lumberghâs red suspenders and peering creepily over your desk, ask yourself how often you answer that question with an assertive âno.â
In theory, learning targets provide a map of where weâre going in class, of what students are expected to know and be able to do. While well-intentioned, itâs off the mark. Weâre failing to remember what itâs like to be a kid in a classroom. Learning targets play into a top-down power structure instead of bottom-up learning. They donât foster engagement, and theyâre meaningless without buy-in.
Top-down design
Growing up, if we had a good teacher, we knew where we were going without being told by a learning target. My best teachers had a gift of making expectations and goals clear. My worst teachers, on the other hand, didnât know where they were going, let alone where they were trying to lead us. If my 10th grade history teacher had posted a learning target, it wouldnât have changed his class. We still wouldâve taken turns reading from the same dull history textbook, we still wouldnât have done any activities, and we still wouldâve spent the majority of the hour silently scheming how to remove his toupĂ©e.
In a top-down, highly static manner, learning targets are another way to disseminate information to students without really letting them be a part of the process. What if there was another way?
Bottom-Up Engagement
I worked for a principal who had a saying: You have to keep the main thing the main thing. And whatâs the âmain thingâ in our line of business? Kids. A simple way to bring kids deeper into the teaching and learning process is to ask higher order thinking skills questions:
- Why are we doing this activity?
- Whatâs my goal?
- How does this connect to what weâve been doing?
- Why are we doing X instead of Y?
Structuring a classroom this way puts kids in the driverâs seat; it makes kids analyze their own learning, and it doesnât take long. I like to ask these questions when I introduce a new type of activity in class, and then the next time we do a similar activity, theyâre already on board and understand why weâre doing it.
If we take this approach instead of simply posting learning targets, students gain the opportunity to understand their class, their teacher, and their own learning. This creates a buy-in which we can then parlay into further student engagement.
But what if?
So what if kids donât know why theyâre doing an activity? What if they canât explain the goal or the connection to prior learning? Then itâs time to swallow our pride and reevaluate what weâre doing and how weâre doing it. Sometimes itâs an issue of not being clear, of not explaining well enough and losing students along the way. But we need to be open to the possibility that if our students canât articulate the answers to those questions, then maybe we shouldnât be doing what weâre doing. Asking higher order thinking questions is best practice in any discipline or grade, and the responses let us know if weâre using appropriate methods to reach our students. Learning targets, on the other hand, donât allow for feedback to improve our practice.
Just say ânoâ
Each time a âLumberghâ asks about my learning targets, I confidently explain that no, I donât use them because I donât think theyâre best for kids. Then during observations I invite them to see what I do instead and how I invite the students into the process. If we can articulate why a different way achieves a similar, appropriate goal but in a more student-centered way, we can safely bet that we wonât be asked to âgo ahead and come in on Saturdayâ to work on our learning targets.
What is your take on learning targets? Come and share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.
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