Having your students understand what they are learning is essential to helping it “stick.” To do this, I post learning targets for my students to have a visual reminder. I do it in a very simple way though… Read on to learn more!
Posting learning targets is something that is being asked of teachers more and more. Although it is “one more thing” we have to do, it makes sense. Just like stating the objective to start the lesson, having a visual reminder of exactly what students are learning reinforces the teaching. This is a great book by Mike Schmoker on the topic.
I post learning targets for the week. I post one or two targets in each curricular area in an area that my students can easily see. We go through the targets on Monday so that they can get a glimpse into what they are learning and what the targets are.
As I am teaching, I move the learning target that we are working on to my focus board. It helps me to remember to state my objective. Let’s get real here, does it always happen at the start of every lesson? No. There are times when it is the end of the day and I still have the target from the first lesson up. I don’t worry though because I still have them up in my weekly overview.
After starting this process I have noticed my students understand exactly why we are learning so much more. They can grasp that I have a reason to teach them and that I have a goal skill for them to be able to do at the end of our lesson.
Do you use learning targets? I have posted my resource in my store for you to use in your classroom. You can click the picture below to download a free sample!
