‘Unlocking Learning Intentions and Success Criteria’ is the culmination of Shirley’s 30 years of experience working closely with teachers in her learning teams, experimenting and developing the most effective ways of using learning intentions and success criteria to maximise student achievement.
The book starts with getting learning intentions right: balancing knowledge with skills and deciding which are open or closed, surface or application. The focus on success criteria which follows is a move from product to process, so that students not only know what the final outcome should look like, but also the steps or ingredients needed to achieve the learning intention. Co-construction strategies are outlined and illustrated through video clips – powerfully demonstrating how students’ involvement in the process of creating success criteria enables them to internalise and understand the criteria.
Complete with chapters on whole school development and threaded throughout with practical strategies and anecdotes from teachers, it unravels the complexity of learning intentions and success criteria to give clarity and confidence. As with all Shirley’s books, it links the research evidence with practice in the classroom – bridging the gap between theory and practice.