Learning Intentions: Wide or Narrow Focus

Imagine you hear about a mythical coffee shop that is giving teachers FREE coffee.  Sounds wonderful, right?  Here's the bad news, you are unclear on how to find the destination.  You know that the coffee shop is located in the center of the city, but you are unsure of how you will get there, the best place to park, and the hours of operation.  Your teacher bestie was able to get the deets, and now you have the full address and your GPS can take you turn-by-turn to get your FREE coffee. You went from frustrated to caffeinated when you had clarity of the destination.  

When we are clear and communicate the learning intentions to our students we can provide tools for students to use GPS to arrive at the learning destination.  Learning intentions, quite simply are a statement of what you intend for your students to learn.  In Module 3 of The Teacher Clarity Playbook, John Hattie (2012) found that there is evidence that when students know what they are supposed to be learning they are three times more likely to learn it. (2019, Fisher, Frey, Amador, Assof; p. 21).

 

There are two schools of thought when developing learning intentions.  Although both ideologies relate to the concept of the lesson being taught, they can have a narrow or wide focus.  

 

When using a wide focus, Larry Ainsworth (2016) suggests that learning intentions can be stated as a global statement without specifics (these will be addressed in the success criteria).  These learning intentions should be in easy-to-understand "kid-friendly" language, include important vocabulary, and indicate the rigor that is expected in the standard.  This can be very helpful when combining multiple, but related standards.  

A more narrow focus for learning intentions from Fisher, Frey, et. al. (2019) is to communicate a daily statement of what students are expected to learn.  Again, these are comprehensible for students and provide a signal to students of what is expected during the lesson.

Ultimately, whether you and your team decide to use a wide or narrow focus; the powerful practice to keep in mind is that students are more likely to learn if they know what is expected. Learning intentions should be revisited throughout the lesson and related to the concept that is being taught.  

Some examples:

 

Courtesy of Region1 Teacher (sorry I cannot remember who - if it's yours please let me know:))

Courtesy of M. Waggonbrenner, Starling PreK-8

 

 

Sources:

Ainsworth, L. (2017, October 23). The Clarity Problem - and the Teacher Solution [web log]. Retrieved August 3, 2023, from https://corwin-connect.com/2017/10/clarity-problem-teacher-solution/. 

Fisher, Douglas, Frey, N., Amador, O., & Assof, J. (2019). The teacher Clarity Playbook: A hands-on guide to creating learning intentions and success criteria for organized, effective instruction ; grades K-12. Corwin, a SAGE Company.