The Value of Learning Targets

I hated learning targets when I was a student.

Well, back then my teachers were calling them aims, but regardless of the name, I never knew the reason why they were on the board each day. In fact, I thought the teacher just put them there because the principal told them they had to. It wasn’t until about half way through my first year of teaching that I finally realized the value of learning targets, or LTs as I call them now.

I realized that learning targets not only tell the kids what the goal of the lesson is, but give them something to strive for. In my classroom, learning targets become part of the study guide when it comes to assessments. This is the reason that no matter what anybody tells me, I will continue to write my LTs as “I can” statements so that they are written FOR my students.

I also make sure to tell my students how to use these learning targets to their advantage during the beginning of the school year and bring up a reminder quite often.