Chapter 1 What will I do to establish and communicate learning goals, track student progress and celebrate success?
Marzano breaks this chapter into three related focuses, setting and communicating learning goals, tracking student progress and celebrating success. As educators we make goals, both short term and long term as we plan our daily and yearly lessons. By allowing the students to also make goals will enhance their learning. Marzano cautions that goal setting just like any other strategy must be executed at an appropriate time.
Feedback used with goal setting will allow students to monitor their own success. Marzano states, “ Goal setting is the beginning step only in the design question. Clear goals establish an initial target. Feedback provides students with information regarding their progress toward that target. Goal setting and feedback used in tandem are probably more powerful than either one in isolation.”
To complete the focus, we then need to understand the best way to create a feeling of success without hindering their progression. He says, “Reinforcing effort means that students see a direct link between how hard they try at a particular task and their success at that task”. He continues by reminding us of two different types of reward systems: extrinsic and intrinsic. While extrinsic may not be the best because it does not satisfy the need of true academic success, where intrinsic can feed into the desire to do better academically and produce better individual results.
Marzano lists 6 different actions we can take to help better our instructional strategy and increase a students success level.
Action 1. Make a distinction between learning goals and learning activities or assignments. Assignments and activities are meant to help students reach the learning goal, however sometimes this line between goal and activity is not clear. This notion is very similar to what Dylan Wiliam talked about in his book Embedded Formative Assessment. The goal of the lesson is specific and should focus on what skill or knowledge will the student take away from the class. It helps to begin these goals as “Students will be able to” when teaching Math or English, and “Students will understand” when teaching Science or Social.
Action 2. Write a rubric or scale for Each Learning goal.This can be done by 1-5 or by using .5 as well. They should concentrate on the goal not the extras of a lesson. They should also be specific.
Action 3. Have Students identify their own learning goals. This is very similar to Action 1, and students can follow the same form of beginning their goals as previously stated. This can also (with a little guidance) help students relate their own interests into the content they are studying.
Action 4. Assess students using a formative approach. As previously studied in Wiliam’s book, formative assessment can help students and teachers recognize where they are in their learning. This also requires an assessment of the compatibility between learning goals and learning activities. Activities need to help students attain the classroom goal and their individual goals as well.
Action 5. Have students chart their progress of each learning goal. This will provide students and teachers with a visual of their progression in a learning goal, and will help identify skills that need extra attention.
Action 6. Recognize and Celebrate growth. This is the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Once they feel like their academic growth is being rewarded they can find a deeper intrinsic motivation to continue progressing. However if we focus on the rewards of behavior their will only be extrinsic motivation, which is harder to produce after one becomes sensitized to that behavior.