Success Criteria

Some of the new "buzzwords" in education are around Learning Goals and Success Criteria. Success Criteria is defined in the Growing Success Document as "Standards or specific descriptions of successful attainment of learning goals developed by teachers on the basis of criteria in the achievement chart, and discussed and agreed upon in collaboration with students, that are used to determine to what degree a learning goal has been achieved. Criteria describe what success “looks like” and allow the teacher and student to gather information about the quality of student learning.” (p.155). That is a great definition but what does it mean?

In Adrienne and Jennifer’s Grade 2/3 and 3 classes they have done a lot of talking with their students about what makes a “good answer.” For their students, they have talked about what items you would find in a “good answer” and what you can do to an answer to make it an even “better” answer. To help their students make sense of all of the discussions that they’ve had around this topic Adrienne and Jennifer co-constructed success criteria for what a good answer looks like in math. To help narrow the focus, they had the students’ zone in on the communication aspect of the achievement chart as that was the area that most of the students struggled with.

For the lesson, they did a three-part lesson where their consolidation was to build the chart on success criteria in communication using the problem from the “action” part of the lesson. Using the student’s own work the class talked about what they thought made a “good answer.” They then started to think of the different levels of achievement and what an answer at that level would look like. As the discussion grew, the students were getting better at clearly articulating what was good about an answer, and what was needed to improve. Now when the students are “done” their problem, they are able to go and check it and then add more detail if they need too. Letting them take more control over their own learning.
There is no one set way to co-construct Success Criteria. Part of the success of the co-creation is being planned in what you are teaching and what you are looking for in the work of your students. As well, having a community of learners where students feel safe to take a risk is also important. Here are the examples from Adrienne and Jennifer’s classes.