Creating and Using Learning Targets and Performance Scales

Learning targets provide a focus for planning and enable teachers to work more efficiently.  These targets serve as communication tools that set forth a criteria for student success in each lesson.  It also functions as a feedback tool that can provide teachers and students with information about performance toward the learning goal.  These learning targets drive what is taught and include all activities, assignments, and assessments that will occur during the lessons or units.  The benefits of learning targets extend beyond the classroom for teachers as they faciliate communication between colleagues, coaches, and school leaders and provide a focus for their collaborative work in professional learning communities. 

Learning targets provide students with an accurate guide to what they need to learn on a day-to-day basis.  Using these targets establishes a clear criteria for what students need to demonstrate to successfully meet the expectations for each lesson and ultimately attain the academic standard.  When students grasp their learning targets, they often become empowered to take ownership and responsibility for future learning.  This will increase their level of engagement and should in turn increase student achievement. 

Please reflect on the following questions that align with the first chapter of Marzano's The New Art and Science of Teaching.

1. What desired mental states and processes should students have regarding clear learning goals? Why is it important for students to attain these mental states and processes?

2.  When the strategies in element 1, providing scales and rubrics, produce the desired effects, what behaviors will teachers see students display?

3.  How are scales and rubrics distinctly different from each other?  Describe a case in which you might design a rubric for your classroom's purposes, and describe a case in which a scale would be a better fit.

4.  In table 1.2, there are three general types of assessments. 1) obtrusive assessments, 2) unobtrusive assessments, and 3) student-generated assessments.  Obtrusive assessments interrupt the flow of instruction.  Teaching stops; assessments occur.  Typically, obtrusive assessments are pencil and paper in nature.  Classroom teachers tend to use obtrusive assessments almost exclusively.  Unobtrusive assessments do not interrupt the flow of instruction and commonly take the form of observations while students are working.  Student-generated assessments are the most unique and potentially powerful form of assessments because students determine how they might demonstrate proficiency on a particular topic.  student-generated assessments help develop student agency because they give some decision-making power to those who are being assessed.   
~When do these types of assessments occur in relation to the flow of instruction, and what qualities do these types of assessments typically have? 
~Which form of assessment has the most potential power, and why?

5.  Define the concepts of status and growth, how they relate to each other, and how both relate to students' scores on a proficiency scale.