Today at assembly I spoke about the way we can help each other get better at what we do and learn by giving feedback to each other.  On Monday 2nd June, the teachers and support staff, and I attended a professional learning day about the use of feedback, learning intentions and success criteria.

The Learning Intention (or focus) for a lesson or series of lessons is a statement, which describes clearly what the teacher wants the students to

• know
• understand; and
• be able to do

as a result of the learning and teaching activities.

Success Criteria are used criteria used by students and teachers to decide whether a student has been successful in achieving the learning intention.  They are equally important for teachers and learners.

When the students know the purpose or intention of the lesson and know how they can be successful in their learning, then teachers and students can provide effective feedback to help the student improve.

The video below was shown to us last Monday by Helen Butler during our Visible Learning workshop.

Austin’s Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work – Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback from Expeditionary Learning on Vimeo.

If you walk down the corridors of the school you will find our own butterfly pictures.