Strategy 4 – Teach Students to Self Assess and Set Goals

To put the students at the centre of their learning the skills of self-assessment are of great importance. Students must have ownership of the responsibility to learn.

“If students do the learning then the grades will follow”

When students see where they are at in their learning and know what they have to do next to progress, they have a self-diagnosed learning plan that they are in control of. They know explicitly what they have to do.

Using checklists, tables, sentence stems and rubrics all help students to self-assess and set goals for their learning. Goal setting is very important for students to undertake and guidance or scaffolding is needed to ensure that goals are

• • Focussed
• • Mobilise effort
• • Increase persistence

Goals need to show

• • a clear description of the intended learning

• • what students can do now
• • an action plan
• • time frame
• • evidence of new learning

Now students have the means to effectively work on learning targets to demonstrate learning  they have the power of control over their own learning.