Notes on Success Criteria, Visible Learning, and Mastery in Schools

Conceptual framing: learning intentions, success criteria, and what success looks like

Learning intentions are crucial in education, especially when paired with success criteria; without the latter, intentions can feel directionless, and without the former, criteria lack context. Shirley Clarke's work highlights the importance of constructing success criteria around student learning, not just their actions. A frequent error in practice is defining learning intentions as daily activities rather than actual learning outcomes. A key shift involves front-loading the learning process by presenting students with exemplars before they begin a task, effectively showing them what successful completion (e.g., an A or a B grade, or the final product) looks like. In time-constrained teaching environments, mastery can occur before a unit's end, necessitating adjustments to timeframes. Providing success criteria upfront helps students understand the end goal and reduces the tendency to prioritize process over genuine understanding.

The importance of front-loading success criteria in classrooms

In practical classroom settings, teachers have found it beneficial to show students success criteria before beginning a task, particularly in subjects like science. This approach reveals the learning destination first, allowing students to orient their strategies toward the end goal rather than merely focusing on individual steps. This concept can be likened to sports: attempting to teach Australian rules football without explaining its rules or scoring would lead to confusion and quick abandonment. Similarly, learning without a clear target feels arbitrary to students. In mathematics, instead of immediately asking for the answer, it's more effective to first illustrate what successful mastery entails, then teach the strategies to achieve it, sometimes requiring both the direct answer and the method. When teachers clearly understand what success looks like, they can effectively prune irrelevant tasks and prioritize what truly matters.

Visible learning and lifelong learning in schools

A visible-learning approach emphasizes making both success criteria and ongoing progress transparent to students, empowering them to self-monitor and self-regulate their learning. Mere compliance from students is insufficient; fostering lifelong learning requires them to internalize the learning target and independently assess their own progress. While some students will complete tasks regardless of upfront clarity, others need explicit expectations from the outset to sustain their motivation beyond the immediate lesson. The