Connect clear targets to assessment quality

Having clear targets is essential for teachers when establishing a connection between the targets and the assessment methods. By having clear targets the teacher knows exactly what to teach and what to assess, so he/she can choose the best instructional activities in order to achieve those goals. However, it is not just about teachers but mainly about students: only when our students know what we are going to teach and what is expected from them, they can be responsible for learning, understanding and acting upon teacher’s feedback. Moreover, and taking into account the essential role of parental involvement in our students education, having clear targets may be useful for parents helping their children at home.

A clear example I had in my classes was when I started teaching Social Sciences in 1º ESO. I knew I had to start teaching the day before so the first week the classes were a mess. However, and after asking the students what did they want to know about the topic, during that weekend I started to organize myself establishing clear targets with its correspondent explanation and activities, so the following week everything changed. I began every lesson telling the students what we were going to do that day and explaining what they were expected to do so since that day both students and myself were more focused and it was easier for us to work on the unit. Every day I wrote on the whiteboard the main targets, letting them know what they were expected to include in their Greece Projects, so most of them were a great success.