In 1994, Paramount Pictures released the movie, Forrest Gump. At the end of the awards season, this incredible movie racked up 74 nominations and 51 wins. Rarely does this movie come up in conversation that someone does not pull a favorite or memorable quote from
When asked about their grades, students often respond, “I don’t know!”—not out of dishonesty, but due to a lack of clarity in grading. When you ask teachers what their biggest grading challenge is, they are likely to reply, "not enough time” or "I have so much
In today's complex educational landscape, one element consistently emerges as essential for accelerating student learning: clarity. When our learners, whether in music or mathematics, kindergarten or Calculus, Language Arts or World Language, understand what they're learning, why they are learning it, and how they'll will
Before you read any farther, I want you to consider the following. How would your students, whether face-to-face, hybrid, or at a distance, respond to these three questions? What am I learning? Why am I learning this? How will I know that I have learned it? We
Looking for something that has the potential to increase students’ learning, but doesn’t take a heavy lift to accomplish? If so, you might be interested in teacher clarity. On John Hattie’s list of influences, teacher clarity is fairly high on the list. The effect size is
We are always learning… I have been including success criteria in my books since the late 90s, after hearing Dorothy Grange, an assessment advisor from northeast England, advocate, with passion, their use. "How are they supposed to know what success looks like without them?" she reasoned, this truth resonating through
Teacher clarity is one of the high yield practices for building assessment-capable learners (Frey, Hattie, Fisher 2018). Included in teacher clarity is communicating learning intentions and success criteria, which is also a focus of one of NCTM’s eight effective mathematics teaching practices: Establish mathematics goals
An excerpt from Making Change That Sticks, a whitepaper about Visible Learningplus in Klein ISD, Texas Lemm Elementary School Principal Kathy Brown had a lightbulb moment when she first heard about Visible Learning at a conference in Florida in 2014. Based on Professor John Hattie’s Visible Learning
“Students need to know their learning target— the specific skill they’re supposed to learn— or else ‘feedback’ is just someone telling them what to do.” -Susan Brookhart Have you ever been given feedback by someone who doesn’t know your situation or your intended goals, or who
Three years ago Ross School set off on a mission to ensure every student (or as we call them learners) developed their assessment capabilities. Put simply, the school wanted all learners to independently answer three fundamental questions: Where am I going in my learning? Where