How to Make Any Classroom as Addictive as a Video Game with Learning Intentions and Success Criteria: Level 2

By Kate Wolfe Maxlow

We talked last time about how Learning Intentions (what we’re learning) and Success Criteria (how we’ll know when we’ve “got it”) can help gamify our classrooms and make them as addictive as video games. (If you didn’t read it, go here now, so that this blog entry makes sense!) We defined “learning intentions” and “success criteria” and gave some examples of each. Level 1 complete!

But in the game of learning intentions and success criteria, Level 2 is where things start to get tricky, because it’s where teachers are actually rolling up their sleeves and writing learning intentions and success criteria. Therefore, without further ado, I give you some of the most Frequently Asked Questions about learning intentions and success criteria:

How do I know what goes in the learning intention versus into the success criteria?  Can they sometimes be the same thing?

Technically, yes, they can be the same same sentence (that’s why conjunctions like “and” exist!).  And often learning intentions and success criteria  are lumped together into one sentence when teachers write objectives.  But there’s a certain value in teaching students to break them into different chunks: what we’re doing vs. how we’ll know when we’re successful.

For instance, here is a statement that some health teachers once proposed to me that they proposed thought should fulfill either/both the learning intentions and success criteria: I can give three reasons why we should not do illegal drugs.

It’s not a bad example of a learning intention/success criteria hybrid, and it will still help accomplish the goal of empowering students to take charge of their own learning. But, putting on my student hat, I would immediately want to know: how am I giving you three reasons?  Do I just have to say them?  Do you want me to write them down? What is it exactly that you want me to do?

Instead, it might be stronger to break it into two parts:

Learning Intention: I can explain why we should not do illegal drugs.

Success Criteria: In a skit with 2-3 other classmates, we can illustrate 3 reasons ways that illegal drugs negatively affect us physically, socially, and emotionally.

See how the learning intention really gets not just at what we’re learning, but also why we’re learning it...whereas the success criteria is more about the specific task that we’ll use to demonstrate the learning itself.

Do success criteria have to include the percentage of accuracy for the task?

I’ll be honest, when we first rolled out success criteria, there was a major misconception that success criteria were just learning intentions where we tacked “...with 80% accuracy” onto the end.  I’m not even sure where “80%” came from; maybe from concepts of mastery learning?  The problem is that it didn’t always make sense to have “80% accuracy” combined with the task.

Let’s go back to the video game example from the previous blog, for instance.  If our learning intention was to “Stop the dragon from terrorizing the town, does it make sense for the success criteria to be: “Stop the dragon from terrorizing the town with 80% accuracy?” Not really.

Now, if the success criteria were to shoot the dragon with 100 arrows, then perhaps it would make sense to say “with 80% accuracy,” but otherwise, it’s something of a meaningless percentage.

Moreover, it’s important to remember that success criteria are supposed to be for and used by students.  That means that success criteria HAVE to be in student-friendly language.  How many first graders do you know who know what it means to read with 80% accuracy, and can use that to judge their own performance?  Probably not many.

On the other hand, a success criteria might be: I can read 50 words and make no more than 10 mistakes. Now, for those of you are wondering if we shouldn’t reword it in the positive instead (“I can read 50 words and get at least 40 right on the first try), consider which is easier for a six year old to count: 10 or 40.  Remember: student-friendly is key!

But that’s only if there are a specific number of countable things that students need to accomplish in order to successfully demonstrate their learning, and if students don’t have to “hit” all those things in order to be considered proficient.  There’s plenty of times when percentages don’t make sense at all.

For instance, you wouldn’t say, “I can write an essay on the foundational principles of our government with 80% accuracy.”  You would more likely say, “I can write an essay on the foundational principles of our government that meets qualifications for Proficient on our district’s Historical Analysis Rubric” (or something like that).

And then sometimes, your success criteria might just be a small classwork task, such as “I can correctly label all the regions of Virginia on a blank map.” And in this case, we don’t want 80% accuracy--we need 100% accuracy in order to move on in the unit.

So when would we use a percentage of accuracy?  Well, you would most likely use it with older students, when the task lends itself to a set number of questions students have to answer or problems they need to solve, in order to demonstrate proficiency.  For younger students, even when you have that set number of questions or problems, you probably want to use terms like “2 out of 3” or “9 out of 10” if you don’t need them to get everything correct in order to move on.

Do I have to actually post my learning intentions and success criteria in my room?

In our district, we do require teachers to physically post their learning intentions in their room, but again, if the learning intentions aren’t shared and used multiple times by students throughout the lesson, then the time that it took to write statements on the board really was wasted.  Our district does not currently require success criteria to be physically posted in the room, but they should be easily visible to students at all times...which means they could also be typed on a particular assignment, posted in Google Classroom, copied into student journals, etc..

What our district does look for is evidence that learning intentions and success criteria are being shared with and used by students multiple times throughout a lesson.  Sometimes this is as easy as asking a student, “Hey, what are you learning today?” and “How will you know when you’ve learned it?”

Can I ever reuse Learning Intentions and Success Criteria with the same class?

It’s more likely that you might reuse a Learning Intention in a curriculum that spirals or is more skill-based.  So, for instance, an English teacher might revisit the learning intention, “We are learning to write persuasive essays” more than once throughout the year; what will most likely change is the Success Criteria--whether it’s the task (for instance, the essay topic might change), what specifically we’re looking for, or the degree of proficiency we expect to see.

Can I differentiate my learning intentions and success criteria?

Yes!  Sometimes it makes more sense than others, so use your judgement.

I’ve also known teachers who work with their students to write the learning intentions and/or success criteria (more often the success criteria), and that’s another great way to empower students.  Given that learning intentions and success criteria are expected in our district’s lesson plans, however, I usually tell teachers to at least have an idea of what you’re looking for with your students, but you can certainly have them help fill in pieces.

What other questions do you have about learning intentions and success criteria and using them in your classroom?  We’d love to hear!

Kate Wolfe Maxlow is the Professional Learning Coordinator for Hampton City Schools, Virginia. You can contact her at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us.