“But what’s the purpose, what will I be getting at?” This question should be paramount for any child as they seek to find what it is they will be learning from a given task/activity.
Learning Intentions have already been addressed and unpacked in this blog, but having conducted school walkabouts this week and having read Graham Nuthall’s work, it seemed timely to revisit them.
This past week the Principal and myself conducted an informal ‘walkabout’ into each teacher’s class where they could share and explain the culture of formative practice in their class. These visits were purposefully conducted after hours – no question, we could ask the children what they were learning, but we wanted to go in to each class to see what the room/environment told us about formative practice.
While talking to one teacher about one of their learning intentions in the class, it became clear to that teacher that their learning intention was explaining the activity and what the children were doing. Through questioning and unpacking the teacher was able to articulate and tell us what the intended learning of the lesson was – thus, being able to provide the specific learning intention.
Learning Intentions need to be specific, clear and unambiguous. They share the intended learning and provide the purpose of the lesson. A learning intention SHOULD always refer to skills/concepts – what it is that you are getting better at.
It is then that a learning intention can/may be used at another time or in another lesson as it is the SKILL or CONCEPT that is being learnt and developed. For example, a class could be focusing on writing arguments, WALT: explain and justify. If the class then decides to focus on debating, the same learning intention could apply, WALT: explain and justify. Here, children can make connections and build upon prior experiences and knowledge. This is supported by Graham Nuthall’s work where he says that children need to be exposed to a new concept three times before it becomes a new belief and understood. Thus reinforcing the importance of the specificity of the learning intention to refer to skills and concepts, not the activity or the product.
The writing and crafting of learning intentions can be tricky but we need to ensure that they are written succinctly in order for children to understand what it is they are getting better at.
