Lesson planning 1: learning outcomes and success criteria

Depending on what course you are following to achieve your QTS, you will all be at slightly different starting points. Don't worry - you will catch up very soon!

Some of you will have had the opportunity to observe plenty of lessons and will have seen examples of how a good lesson should be planned. 

Some of you may have been studying the theory of lesson planning and how this should look in the classroom.
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Some of you may have even started to deliver part of a lesson, or even a whole lesson.

Certainly by Christmas, you will all be planning lessons and delivering them to one or more year groups in at least one key stage!

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​The next few posts will examine the importance of various features of lessons, to help you in your planning.

​We will look at:

• Learning outcomes, learning intentions, lesson objectives – what do you call them, and does it really matter? (below)
• Starters and plenaries – and why they are vital to the learning process
• Differentiation – what it is and how you can start thinking about it
• AfL – and how to link these to learning outcomes and success criteria

What do you call them - and does it really matter?

Outcomes, intentions, objectives...

There is a subtle but important difference in the terminology.

1. Lesson outcomes- what will the students be doing?
   
2. Learning intentions - what will the students be learning? 
3. Lesson objectives are a specific statement of what the aim of the lesson will be 

Although in reality it is all just semantics, I believe that the way in which you view these lesson goals is important in relation to how you deliver!

We are basically looking at the goals for the lesson – and there is a difference in the goal being learning related or task related.

Learning related – the intentions or outcomes of the lesson in terms of what the students will have learnt by the end of the lesson.

Task related – the lesson objectives in terms of what tasks the students will have completed.

​The move now is towards learning related outcomes, so whatever you call them, try to think about what you want the students to have learnt by the end of the lesson. The tasks are simply the methods by which they will assimilate the information and embed the knowledge. 

​The most important part of designing your learning intentions is that the students need to know what they are too.

​It is all very well deciding what you want them to learn and then just delivering the lesson...but if the students aren't included in this knowledge you will be missing a large learning opportunity!

​We learn best when we

1. Know what we are going to be learning
2. Know what success looks like
3. Understand what we are going to be doing to be successful!

​So you need to share these outcomes with the students. ​

​Different ways of sharing outcomes

• You may want to have them listed on the board when the students arrive,

[Please note that it is not acceptable for the students to copy these into their books. Ofsted view it - and I agree - as being a waste of learning time!]

• You may want to do the starter activity first, and then discuss what they will be learning

• You may want to set a question as a starter and tell them they will be finding out the answers during the lesson...

​How you do it is up to you - and variety is important too, so don't do the same thing every lesson! The key though is how you will know if the students have met the outcomes you set: what is the success criteria?

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​Here are some examples of success criteria 

The students will know they have been successful if:

1. They can share their knowledge in a presentation to the class
2. They can successfully compete in a quiz at the end of the lesson
3. They can complete a chart which asks for certain elements that they will be learning about
4. They can show their knowledge in a piece of independent work - possibly something you set for homework.

Once you have shared the outcomes, and the success criteria - you should explain what they will be doing in the lesson to be able to reach that stage. 

We can relax into the learning when we know the route we will be taking to get there. Sometimes you may want to surprise them - this is exciting too - but you always need to think about what will help them to remember what they will be learning.

Think about the plan in terms of how the learning builds. Below is a possible lesson structure based on Greaney and Rodd (2003) who researched and wrote about the Accelerated Learning and Learning-to-Learn models. (Well worth reading!)

​Connect – lesson outcomes are described and connections are made to prior learning or existing experiences.
Activate – students make sense of the knowledge through specific activities. This is the bulk of the lesson to enable the students to engage in the learning.
Demonstrate – the students can now demonstrate their new knowledge. They have learnt something and are expected to apply that knowledge.
Consolidate – also known as the review or plenary. Students articulate what they have learnt and how they have learnt it.

​Some examples of how you may share this with the students. 

You may explain that in the lesson they will be doing the following...

1. A group task to find out information, followed by some independent learning and then presenting their information to the class.

2. A task based on source material in the book which they will complete with a partner, followed by a group activity to find out more information, finishing with a quiz – where they set the questions for the other groups

​Working in this way, where the student is aware of how they will be learning and what success looks like, means they will be able to take more responsibility for their own learning – a position that you should work hard to achieve as a teacher. 

Note how in each of these examples it explains what the students will be expected to do to show they have met the outcomes.

​I find it useful to consider how I learn best. I did not enjoy being set an assignment, for example, without knowing - before I started - what I needed to do to get a good grade!

And still, when I go on courses, I like knowing how long we have for each task and what it will lead on to. Then I can make the most of each minute!

When planning, ask yourself

• What will the students have learned that they did not know before? 
• How will they demonstrate that they have met the learning intentions?
• How can I share with the students what success will look like (and avoid simply focusing on task completion)?

Observation tasks 

Look at 

1. How the lesson structure fits into the model outlined above. In your reflections consider how successful this was, and if there are occasions it does not work.

2. How the starter connects to either the previous lesson, or to the current lesson. Examine different types of starter and which engage the students the best.

3. How does the teacher share the success criteria? How to students make sense of this? 

EVIDENCE: Each of these will be good evidence for your portfolio when you link what you have observed with lessons you plan yourself.

The next post will look at starters and plenaries and how they should link to the learning outcomes / intentions / objectives!