Chapter 3 Clarifying, Sharing, and Understanding Learning Intentions and Success Criteria
What I really loved about this chapter, was his way of showing us that the students ability to understand learning objectives is important but that we as educators need to understand the method behind it. Wiliam expresses that to understand a learning objective is more than simply writing the objective on the board before class begins, but rather it is what you expect a student to take away from the class. When he brought up the difference between the activities of the class scheduled and the goal of the class, this really reminded me of another professor who would stress “SMART” objectives.
He helps us understand the difference between learning objectives and success criteria through three stages:
1.Task-specific versus generic scoring rubrics; Rubrics can give specific or nonspecific guidelines. Wiliam cautions that specific rubrics are better for summative assessment because they give directions of exactly what you are looking for, but rubrics that are more open allow for them to use creativity. We can increase their understanding of rubrics by allowing students into the process of making them. Give them old examples of the work, ask what was good/bad in the project/and conclude on a guideline rubric that is student oriented.
2. Product-focused versus process focused criteria; his idea is usually seen best in PE teachers or coaches because they know how to break down complex skills into easy drills.
3. Official versus student-friendly language; this step encourages teachers to use the language that is officially used in the systems. Give them simple words to understand the bigger term, but use the bigger term more often than not.
One technique that I found very interesting was where students were allowed to make their own study guide, or design their own quiz or tests. Studies shown in this reading said that more students did better this way then with someone else's products.