Determine lesson objectives and write success criteria
1. Determine lesson objectives
This is the first and most important step to ensure the success of an outcome-based lesson. A lesson objective describes what the learner will know or be able to do after the lesson rather than what the learner will be exposed to during the instruction (i.e. topics).
In the ESL curriculum, the lesson objectives are already provided on the mapping portal (Read Part A, Section 4 (Course), Sub-section 4.3 (Scheme of work) to know how to access lesson objectives on the portal).
The objectives have been written to meet the fundamental requirements:
- meeting SMART criteria
- being aligned with and mapped to the ESL curriculum standards
The lesson objectives provided on the portal are for a “lesson” which may be taught in several periods whereas lesson planning is required for each and every class meeting (which takes place in single or double consecutive periods). Therefore, teachers’ responsibilities are to allocate and select the lesson objectives to focus on in each of their lesson plans.
Once teachers have determined the lesson objectives for the class meeting, rank them in terms of their importance. This step is to allow teachers to identify what lesson objectives are the most important to accomplish in case of pressing time. Important questions to consider when ranking the objectives are:
- What are the most important concepts, ideas, or skills I want students to be able to grasp and apply?
- Why are they important?
- If I ran out of time, which ones could not be omitted?
- And conversely, which ones could I skip if pressed for time?
2. Write success criteria
Success criteria are statements which define what success looks like. To be more specific, they are a set of features that teachers expect to see in students’ work and performance throughout a lesson.
Success criteria must be predicated on intended lesson objectives. In other words, they set standards or clarify indicators of how well lesson objectives have been met. They are also a tool for teachers and students to chart learning performance against baseline assessments and measure progress.
Writing success criteria is required for each lesson objective in the lesson plan. They must be direct, clear, specific, measurable and attainable.
Examples of success criteria are shown below
Lesson objective: Learners will be able to deduce the meaning of new words in a short talk about illness.
Success criteria:
- Learners enumerate the 3 strategies to deduce meaning from context in short talk using the worked example.
- Students deduce accurately the meaning from context in short talk using the 3 strategies they have learned.