What are your Core Learning Outcomes?

Based on the book by Elliott Seif, Teaching for Lifelong Learning: How to Prepare Students for a Changing World. (2021: Solution Tree Press)

 In my work over the years with hundreds, perhaps thousands of teachers at all levels, one of my greatest surprises is how often I come across teachers who have difficulty articulating their primary, key, essential, core goals/outcomes for their students to achieve. I have also often found that principals and superintendents have trouble articulating the core, common outcomes for students at their school or in their district. This is surprising in light of the obvious need for teachers, schools and districts to be clear about what they want to accomplish with their students, why the outcomes are important, and how they will go about assuring that expected learning is met and measured. In some districts, due to the current emphasis on using standardized tests to measure success, core outcomes are stated as having students do well on these tests, as opposed to core learning goals reflecting the needs of students in our newly developing culture and environment!

 It is my belief that, without a clear purpose for teaching and outcomes for learning, teaching is likely to drift, become diffuse, be difficult to assess, and even become ineffective. The strongest teachers often are passionate about their goals for students. They see themselves on a mission - to create a love of history, mathematics, or science; to help their students become mathematical problem solvers; to develop critical thinkers; to open students’ minds to different perspectives; to be good researchers; to learn and understand the scientific method; to build artistic talent; to create effective readers and writers; to spark creativity. These teachers not only have a core set of outcomes, but spend much of their time figuring out how to put their core learning goals into practice and assure student learning and growth towards their goals.

 So, here’s the obvious implication - every teacher should have a core set of outcomes that drives his or her teaching and learning. Teachers at all levels, in all grades, and in all subjects, should be clear about their outcomes and expectancies for ALL their students.  So if you are a teacher reading this commentary, here’s your chance to consider this important question -- What is your core mission?  While you may have many goals for your students, can you identify ONE OR A FEW really critical outcomes that you expect all your students to grow towards and/or achieve while they are your students? Perhaps it is one or two major understandings that all your students should learn and be able to express. Or maybe it’s an important skill or skill set that every student in your class should improve. Or it might be a “habit of mind”, a “soft skill” that you would like all of your students to improve on and grow. Or it might be some combination of these.

So -- what are the core outcomes that are at the heart of teaching and student learning? Here are some of my ideas that, in my view, every teacher should consider as critical for preparing students for living in a changing and uncertain world:

·      A Growth Mindset – How can we as teachers help students develop and maintain a curiosity about and interest in learning? How can students learn to relish a challenge or delving into an interesting, provocative question, examine it carefully, and come up with answers and solutions? How can we build a “love of learning” in our students that will carry into the future?

·      Understanding – What is critical for our students to understand? What is the foundation of core understandings for a taught course, series of units, subject area? At the elementary level, what is the core set of key understandings, and associated knowledge, for students to learn across the content areas? At the secondary level, what are the core, critical understandings and associated knowledge for a subject or subjects?

·      Vital Skills – What skills should we assure student competence as llifelong learners? Consider the following skills – the ability to

o   Develop understanding?

o   Conduct research? Investigate? Find out?

o   Think critically and creatively?

o   Communicate effectively?

o   Collaborate?

Each of these skills have multiple components and options, and how they get integrated into learning will vary, depending on subject, grade level, activity, and so on.

·      Independence, initiative, and depth of learning– How can we help students develop ways to apply learned understandings and skills to new and novel situations? Work independently and interdependently? Deepen learning?

·      Talents and Interests – How can we help students develop their individual talents and interests? What can we do to broaden their experiences and interests and introduce them to a variety of choices and options? How can we help them to increase their successes and achievements?

Once you have identified core student outcomes, here are some sub-questions to examine and help you to make sure that you want to stick with these or change them:

·             Significance - Are they powerful outcomes that will make a significant difference in the lives of students? Do they help students to adapt to a rapidly changing world? Are they too specific? Too broad? If you can’t really justify their significance, go back and rethink it.

·             Impact - If students accomplished or made progress on these outcomes, what would be their impact on the student? On his or her future? On the world outside of school?

·             Outcomes in practice - Can you operationalize them? Define them? Describe them in detail? Describe them in practice? Describe when students “get there”?

·             Measures of success - How will you know if students accomplished them? What will you look for? What kind of work would students produce? What observations of your students will suggest progress and success? As you think about this, consider many types of assessments – tests and quizzes, performances and presentations, checks for understanding, inquiry tasks, scientific investigations, observations of discussions, writing results, student self-reflections, results of projects, general student observations, or others.

·             Making progress - How will you know if students are making progress towards the outcomes? What would you look for? What kinds of feedback would you give students to help them improve?

·             Engagement and motivation –What are the key strategic actions you might take (or currently take) to foster success? How will you engage students in accomplishing your goals? Motivate students to achieve them?  How will students be involved? What types of activities are best used to help students make progress and succeed?

·             Unique or collaborative – Are these core outcomes unique to an individual teacher, or is it also part of a school’s explicit mission? A district’s explicit mission? Can many in a school help to support their development? To reach success?  Can many students work together to make this happen? Does it make sense to work together with others in a school or district so that all contribute to insuring that the core outcomes are met?

·             New approaches - What might teachers do differently to make sure that the core outcomes are accomplished? What could teachers do to work together to insure success? To learn how to better help students make progress towards the outcomes?

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 Once there is clarity on a few key outcomes as part of your mission, what are the implications for teaching practice? What will it look like to work towards changing attitudes, improving learning, developing skills, etc? If a key goal is to develop a love of learning, curiosity and engagement, what will that mean for teaching and learning? Will there be more emphasis on raising questions, puzzles, mysteries to explore? Will students be engaged in finding information and ideas to answer questions and face challenges? If the core goal is to promote understanding, will there be greater opportunities for students to sort and classify information into bigger ideas? Discussions that promote thinking and organizing information?

In sum, creating clarity of core outcomes helps teachers to focus teaching and student learning on what is really important. It helps each teacher work on improving student skills over time to better assure that students are engaged, motivated, and assessed on core outcomes. It helps schools and districts make explicit what is important about teaching, learning, and education, and to build collaborative networks so that many teachers can work together on the same important outcomes.  And, in general, it makes teachers more passionate about their work and teaching much more meaningful, and promotes the type of learning that students need in order to be successful in a changing, uncertain century world.

In my book Teaching for Lifelong Learning: How to Prepare Students for a Changing World (Solution Tree Press, 2021), I examine a variety of specific ways to incorporate the outcomes described above– a growth mindset, foundational understandings and skills, deepening learning and fostering independent/interdependent learning, and developing student talents and interests. From the design of essential questions, to a four phase instructional model with suggested activities, to key formative and summative assessments, to curriculum indicators to help analyze, modify, select and design a new curriculum – all these and more can help teachers and schools to implement a clear set of outcomes in order to prepare students for a rapidly changing and uncertain world.