Having very clear learning intentions for our students is hard work, but it may be one of the most important teacher moves in our classrooms. NO MATTER WHETHER YOU HAVE BEEN TEACHING FOR ONE YEAR OR TWENTY, STUDENT AWARENESS OF THE “WHY” IS CRITICAL.

Students must know why they are learning and how they will apply this learning in future contexts. We have all been that student who says, “When am I going to use this?” By getting ahead of the question, our learning intentions make future application transparent. Clear learning intentions is a critical part of a high-leverage classroom strategies: such teacher clarity done well can double the rate of student learning.

THE ‘WHY’ IS WHAT MAKES BACKWARD DESIGN ESSENTIAL. It is important to be clear about your learning intention before you plan the day’s/week’s/uniit’s activities. The academic tasks that a student engages in should serve to illuminate the learning intention. Students need to be able to see the clear link between where they are going and how you are getting them there.

It is critical to base our learning intentions on the standards, described skills, knowledge and habits of mind that student need to internalize. However, for many years there has been a push to “post the standards” in the classroom. While this is a great start, without explaining to students how to learn the standard or when to use the standard, it is just more adult writing on the board. This would be like your tax accountant posting the tax code you are supposed to follow without the explanation of how to use it in your return.

By being explicit about the learning intention student attention and engagement increases. If a student does not know the what and why of a lesson, they are far more likely to tune out. STUDENTS SHOULD HAVE THE SAME UNDERSTANDING OF WHERE THEY ARE HEADED IN A LESSON THAT THE TEACHER DOES.

Here are a few examples of clear learning objectives:

• Today I am going to teach you how to identify and articulate important character traits in some major figures in the Battle of Gettysburg. This will help you understand how leaders in history motivate people to get their agenda done.
• At the conclusion of this lesson, you will be able to explain to a partner a definition of covalent bonds. We will use the your knowledge in our experiment later in the week.
• I want you to understand and apply scale factor at the end of today’s lesson. This is important because scale factor is an important concept in fractions, that you will use over and over again, in problem after problem, math class after math class.

Big or small, covering one lesson or one month of lessons, STUDENTS MUST KNOW THE WHY. They simply will not learn as much or as well without it.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

1. Here is an extremely quirky video from a Scottish high school teacher arguing for the important of learning intention. No fancy production values here, but a sincere – if strangely humorous – delivery and some solid thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdDndXDABQw
2. Edutopia’s article sums it up and takes it one step further – arguing that the best teachers will spend a substantial portion of their planning time developing clear learning intentions and determining how best to embed them in the lesson. https://www.edutopia.org/article/framework-lesson-planning