How Do I Make My Learning Intentions & Success Criteria Stronger?

By Kate Wolfe Maxlow

What are Learning Intentions and Success Criteria?

When I first heard the words “Learning Intentions,” I admittedly thought they sounded overly complicated. It’s a term used by John Hattie in his book Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement, and the definition from Hattie is a lot simpler than you might expect: “Learning Intentions describe what it is we want students to learn in terms of the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and values within any particular unit or lesson.”

In other words:

Learning Intentions answer the question: “What are students learning?”

“Success Criteria” is slightly less of a head-scratcher. Hattie says, “The purpose of the Success Criteria...is to make students understand what the teacher is using as the criteria for judging their work, and, of course, to ensure that the teacher is clear about the criteria that will determine if the Learning Intentions have been successfully achieved.”

In our district, we tell teachers that a Success Criteria should include two important components: 1) What is the TASK that students will complete, and 2) What is the level of proficiency required?

In other words:

Success Criteria answer the question, “What task will students complete to show they’ve ‘got it’?”

One of the most frequent questions I get is how to word Learning Intentions and Success Criteria. I’m always cautious when it comes to answering this question, because if you look at Hattie’s research, neither “Learning Intentions” nor “Success Criteria” are a specific program that only works if done in a prescriptive way. Instead, he uses each term as a summary of various techniques that either 1) tell students what they’re learning (Learning Intentions), or 2) explain to students what success will look like (Success Criteria).

In other words:

As long as you’re answering the above questions, there’s no one prescriptive way to write your Learning Intentions and Success Criteria.

Now, some of the principals in our district DO require their teachers to all use similar stems in their Learning Intentions and Success Criteria. They usually make this decision for a couple of reasons:

• To help teachers better understand the difference between the two statements
• To provide consistency between grade levels and subject areas for their students

That being said, I’ve had some teachers tell me that they struggle to make their Learning Intentions and Success Criteria distinct from one another and ask for help. Let’s take a look at some examples and work through them.

How do I make my Learning Intentions and Success Criteria stronger?

EXAMPLE 1: Social Studies
LEARNING INTENTION: Students will be able to explain the causes of the American Revolution.
SUCCESS CRITERIA: Students will be able to explain the causes of the American Revolution.

Here you can see that the Learning Intentions and Success Criteria are exactly the same. Busy teachers writing the same thing twice on their board feels like (and is!) a waste of time.

Moreover, these are BOTH Learning Intentions. The Success Criteria misses both of the points above: there’s no task nor level of proficiency.

Why not? Well, to “explain” can mean so many different things. Are students verbally explaining it to a friend? Do they need to write a 10-page paper? Are they answering a multiple choice exit ticket? There are literally hundreds of ways that we could assess students on whether they can “explain” something.

Next, there’s no level of proficiency. How many causes do students have to know? To what level do they need to explain them? Does “explain” here mean that they simply have to rattle off three memorized reasons, or are we expecting them to use primary sources to pick a main cause and justify it?

Here are some better Success Criteria for this Learning Intention:

SUCCESS CRITERIA: When asked, students will be able to verbally recite the given 3 major causes of the American Revolution.
SUCCESS CRITERIA: Students will be able to write a 5 paragraph essay in which they outline three major causes of the American Revolution, provide evidence for why they think each is a major cause, and score a Proficient in the Historical Essay Rubric.


EXAMPLE 2: Foreign Language
LEARNING INTENTION: Students will be able to describe what they would like to eat for a meal.
SUCCESS CRITERIA: Students will be able to have a dialogue with a classmate about their favorite meal.

You can see that we’re getting closer here. The Learning Intention and Success Criteria are still really close, however, and not quite meeting the definition for either.

The Learning Intention, first of all, probably needs to be a bit more general. The point of this lesson is not simply describing a single meal (which, if that’s all the student can do, won’t be that helpful), but rather to learn how to discuss or describe food and meal-related topics.

Meanwhile, the Success Criteria is starting to hint at a task (and dialogue with a classmate), but doesn’t do much to tell students what proficient will look like. Can each person spout one sentence and call it a day? Is the dialogue written beforehand and memorized, or does it have to be extemporaneous? How many vocabulary words do they need to know? Do they get to keep it all in present tense, or do they have to use some past or future tenses?

Here are some better examples:

LEARNING INTENTION: Students will be able to understand and use food-related vocabulary.
SUCCESS CRITERIA: Students will engage in a one minute extemporaneous dialogue with a classmate in which they each use at least five (5) given vocabulary words and have no more than three (3) grammatical mistakes.



EXAMPLE 3: English Language Arts
LEARNING INTENTION: I can summarize the short story The Tell-Tale Heart.
SUCCESS CRITERIA: I can summarize the short story The Tell-Tale Heart by including 1-3 significant details from each of the following: the beginning, the middle, and the end.

This Learning Intention and Success Criteria are so, so very close to doing the job. Still, though, you see the learning intention being repeated in the Success Criteria, which can be frustrating to teachers to have to write twice and students to have to read twice.

Meanwhile, the Success Criteria has the level of proficiency required (need 1-3 significant details for the beginning, middle, and end), but it’s still missing the actual task. Are students doing this verbally? In a paragraph? In a graphic organizer.

Therefore, what about these instead:

LEARNING INTENTION: I can summarize a short story.
SUCCESS CRITERIA:  I can complete a graphic organizer on The Tell-Tale Heart that includes 1-3 significant details in each of the following boxes: the beginning, the middle, and the end.

Have a question about Learning Intentions and Success Criteria? Post a comment below or send an email!

Kate Maxlow is the Professional Learning Coordinator at Hampton City Schools in Hampton, Virginia. She can be reached at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us