In August, 2020, in “Know Your Why, Your Purpose,” I described how important it is to know your why as an educator. This fall my staff revisited this concept and every teacher wrote their own why, based on our personal goals and our school’s mission. My why is:

Be a mirror to reflect back to our students their beauty and brilliance so they feel: belonging, safe, heard, seen valued, LOVED. 

Some of this wording in my Why comes from Erin Jones in The Humanizing Power of Stories. In this post, I want to describe the importance of helping students know the why of a lesson, and their why as learners.

When students are clear on the Learning Target of a lesson, the I Can Statement, they know where to focus their attention. They can zoom in on the most important aspect of the experience. When they know the Why of the lesson, the relevance of the lesson to their lives and their learner identities, they are more motivated and engaged in the learning. Students are also empowered when we explicitly post and share the Learning Target. The Why of the lesson can be stated by the teacher or the students can share why they think the Learning Target is important.

In Hattie’s meta-analysis of effective pedagogy, Teacher Clarity has an effect size of .75 which is almost twice the average effect size of .40. When students know the Learning Target, what success looks like, and the why of the learning, retention and learning increase. I have been in a number of classrooms where the focus, energy, and ownership in learning has increased visibly after the teacher has shared this information with students.

Here are some tips for Learning Targets:

• Clearly state the Learning Target, refer to it, and post it in the same spot each day.
• Have students engage in talking to each other about the goal or cover the goal and see if they can remember it.
• Check to make sure students understand the Learning Target.
• Tell students or ask them why this goal is important/relevant and connect it to past and future learning.
• Refer to the goal throughout the lesson and encourage students to do this on their own.
• Provide or co-create mentor texts, exemplars, rubrics, checklists, etc. This will empower students to know what success looks like, to know the specific way that it will be measured.

In the months ahead I want to investigate and reflect on the impact of having students know their why. What can I do to help them recognize their learner identities? How can I nurture a sense of belonging by honoring and celebrating all that they bring to a learning experience, from their lived experiences? How can we work in partnership to develop learning pathways that incorporate strengths, identity, and goals to empower students?

“We define belonging as the extent to which people feel appreciated, validated, accepted, and treated fairly within an environment. When students feel they belong….they feel confident that they are seen as a human being, a person of value.” – Cobb and Krownapple

Resources:
The Humanizing Power of Stories, Erin Jones
What is Teacher Clarity, Corwin
Know Your Why, Your Purpose, Kathy Collier
Belonging Through a Culture of Dignity, Cobb and Krownapple