Creating and Using Learning Targets & Performance Scales: How Teachers Make Better Instructional Decisions

Publisher Marketing: Can your students understand and even generate performance scales? Academic standards call for increased rigor, but simply raising complexity is not enough. Students need to be able to understand learning goals, embedded in performance scales, which include application of knowledge. They should even be capable of generating their own learning scales. In turn, teachers must become adept at providing rigorous learning goals and planning and scaffolding instruction to meet students' needs. Creating & Using Learning Targets & Performance Scales: How Teachers Make Better Instructional Decisions explores explicit techniques for mastering this crucial strategy of instructional practice. It includes: Explicit steps for implementation Recommendations for monitoring students' ability to understand learning goals Adaptations for students who struggle, have special needs, or excel in learning Examples and nonexamples from classroom practice Common mistakes and ways to avoid them The Essentials for Achieving Rigor series of instructional guides helps educators become highly skilled at implementing, monitoring, and adapting instruction. Put it to practical use immediately, adopting day-to-day examples as models for application in your own classroom. Contributor Bio:  Marx, Kathy Kathleen Marx, MSEd (Educational Leadership), MSEd (School Counseling), is a leading expert in personal development across industries. She has successfully assisted many districts nationally to implement deep school improvement changes through her work with Learning Sciences International. Her background of classroom teaching, gifted education consulting, school counseling, and building administration gives her unique insight into leading-edge strategies in implementing research-based instructional and evaluation models. She is a graduate of Miami University (Ohio) and the University of Dayton. Contributor Bio:  Marzano, Robert J Robert J. Marzano is senior scholar at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) in Aurora, Colorado, associate professor at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and president of Marzano & Associates in Centennial, Colorado. He is the author of 25 books, 150 articles and chapters in books, and 100 sets of curriculum materials for teachers and students in Grades K 12. His works include What Works in Schools: Translating Research Into Action, School Leadership That Works, Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement, Classroom Management That Works, Classroom Instruction That Works, Classroom Assessment and Grading That Work, and A Different Kind of Classroom: Teaching With Dimensions of Learning. During his 35 years in public education, Marzano has worked in every state multiple times as well as in a host of countries in Europe and Asia. The central theme in his work has been translating research and theory into practical programs and tools for K 12 teachers and administrators.