1. Student Learning Objectives: Concepts and Application
Institute Day
February 27, 2015

2. Agenda Q&A Relationship Between Standards, Big Ideas and SLOs
Development of SLO Assessment
Relationship Between Standards, Big Ideas and SLOs
Review Student Growth Timeline
Define Student Growth and SLOs
Q&A
Greet your audience and introduce yourself. Welcome! This presentation provides an overview on Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) which all teachers will engage in as a vehicle toward student growth implementation for the performance evaluation process.

3. Outcomes Deepen Understanding of Student Growth
Collaborative or Individual Development of SLOs
Practice Preparing Assessment
In this session, we will explain the SLO process and describe its key components by completing the following:
Reviewing Student Growth definition
Collaboratively or Individually working through the SLOs process and
Practice Preparing Assessment

4. Student Growth Definition
Student growth means a demonstrable change in a student’s or group of students’ knowledge or skills as evidenced by gain on two or more assessments, between two or more points in time.
This is a review of what student growth is and its relevance to all staff without Type 73 licenses.

5. Student Growth Timeline
As part of the multiple measures of teacher performance, student growth will be implemented for every teacher by the school year to show how teachers are impacting the students they serve.
In collaboration with the IPEA, the district formed a Student Growth Committee in 2012 where the primary focus has been exploring and refining student growth measures to ensure all teachers have valuable data that represents their individual contribution to student growth.
Review history of student growth committee
Formation of Student Growth Committee
Reviewed Assessment Types and Growth Models
Emphasis on SLO Professional Development for Staff and Piloting
Second SLO Pilot Year and Selection of Additional Assessment
Growth Model Fully Implemented, Including a Contribution to the Overall Evaluation
The school year is the final opportunity to pilot SLO. Participation in the pilot of SLOs will afford teachers the opportunity of being able to work with SLOs, practice how to best incorporate the process into their daily instruction and provide feedback on how the process is working.
Formation of Student Growth Committee
Reviewed Assessment Types and Growth Models
Emphasis on SLO Professional Development for Staff and Piloting
Second SLO Pilot Year and Selection of Additional Assessment
Growth Model Fully Implemented, Including a Contribution to the Overall Evaluation

6. Student Learning Objective (SLO)
A Student Learning Objective is a detailed process used to organize evidence of student growth over a specified period of time.
SLOs provide an opportunity to…
Set meaningful learning goals;
Align curriculum and instruction;
Engage students in meaningful assessment; and
Monitor student growth using multiple measures of student learning over time.
A Student Learning Objective is a detailed process used to organize evidence of student growth over a specified period of time. The goal of the SLO Process is to focus teachers on key standards being taught and support the design and use of high quality assessments to measure student progress toward mastery of those standards. This allows teachers to plan backward from an end vision of student success, ensuring that every minute of instruction is guiding teachers, and our schools toward
Setting meaningful learning goals;
Aligning curriculum and instruction;
Engaging students in meaningful assessment; and
Monitoring student growth using multiple measures of student learning over time.
At this time you will only need to complete one SLO with corresponding pre- and post-assessments.

7. Steps to Creating an SLO- “ThinkSheet”
Identify Population and Purpose
Identify and Define Learning Expectations
Identify Instructional Strategies
Consider an Assessment Design
Prepare an Assessment
The first step in creating an SLO and developing an assessment is to Identify the Population and Purpose.
We will be using the Interactive ThinkSheet template.
You may access Interactive ThinkSheet at (allow participants time to find ThinkSheet template)

8. Identify Population and Purpose
Population is important because it indicates the students who will take the pre and post assessments.
Who are the students being assessed?
What are the students’ strengths and weaknesses?
This is an assessment of learning that will offer an opportunity to gauge (population) students’ knowledge of (topic of assessment) and allow for measurement of content covered over (period of instruction).
This is an assessment of learning that will offer an opportunity to gauge fifth-grade students’ knowledge of the musical scales and will cover content presented during the first four months of the school year.
This is an assessment of learning that will offer an opportunity for tenth- through twelfth-grade students to demonstrate the knowledge and skills acquired over the course of the first semester of Advanced Automotive Mechanics class.
The first column on the ThinkSheet requires identifying your population. Population is important because it indicates the students who will take the pre and post assessments. Minimally one classroom should be identified and included students attend at least 90%.

9. Now You Try
In your like-role small group, please complete the Population column on your Interactive SLO ThinkSheet. Allow 10 minutes of work time for this column. Ask groups to share their thinking within small group and to larger audience.

10. Steps to Creating an SLO- “ThinkSheet”
Identify Population and Purpose
Identify and Define Learning Objectives
Identify Instructional Strategies
Consider an Assessment Design
Prepare an Assessment
Now we are going to identify and define your SLOs learning objectives.

11. Learning Objectives
A learning objective is a description of what students will be able to do at the end of a specified period of time aligned to appropriate learning standards.
The development of a learning objective provides a solid foundation for meaningful, goal directed instruction and assessment.
The learning objective may include one big idea/essential understanding that integrates multiple content standards and links units of instruction together.
The big idea/essential understanding chosen should be representative of the most important learning and typical student growth in a specific content area, grade level, or classroom.
This what a learning objective is – paraphrase or summarize…
Teachers create Learning Objectives by first selecting standards and/or grade level expectations that span the duration of the course and are critical for students’ success in the current course and future courses.

12. Big Idea or Essential Understanding
emphasize the common characteristics of a unifying concept;
are a concise statement, principle, or generalization;
promote in-depth understanding; and
apply across disciplines.
Big Ideas/Essential Understandings exist within current curricular documents. Think globally, what you do with kids, broad…general.
Big ideas are the thread that links units, lessons, and year-to-year teaching.
Big ideas provide a way to focus daily classroom activity on meaningful goals.
Big ideas are a way to think about our curriculum that helps us answer the question: Why does it matter?
Big ideas are central to a discipline or course and have lasting value beyond the classroom.
Big ideas synthesize what students should understand—not just know or do—as a result of studying a particular content area.
Big ideas articulate what students should “revisit” over the course of their lifetimes in relationship to the content area.
Think about a concept that is beyond a single standard. This big idea is to be an overarching concept that integrates many of the course or grade level standards. This big idea is not just a general statement but tries to encompass a larger view of combining standards together.

13. Does the Big Idea/Essential Understanding…
apply to more than one discipline?
stand the test of time?
apply to the students’ lives?
matter outside of the classroom?
promote in-depth understanding?
reflect a concise statement, principle, theory, or generalization?
require deep thinking?
Guiding questions related to Big Ideas/Essential Understandings…

14. Big Idea Examples and Non-Examples
Price is a function of supply and demand.
Healthy nutritional practices influence all
aspects of our lives.
All life is interrelated as evidenced by
the differences and similarities among species.
Relationships exist in all disciplines.
Gas prices fluctuate with the availability of oil.
Fruits and vegetables contain essential vitamins.
Whales and humans are both warm blooded; salamanders and sharks are both cold blooded.
Relationships between qualities can be represented by graphs, tables and equations.
An idea is “big” if it helps us make sense of many confusing experiences and seemingly isolated facts. It’s like the picture that connects the dots or a simple rule of thumb in a complex field.

15. Standard Big Idea Learning Objective
Kindergarten Standard
Understand addition as putting together and adding to, and understand subtraction as taking apart and taking from.
Mathematical operations are used in solving problems in which a new value is produced from one or more values.
Students will develop appropriate mathematical models to solve authentic math tasks requiring addition and subtraction .
Third Grade Standard
Represent and solve problems involving multiplication and division.
Students will develop appropriate mathematical models to solve authentic math tasks requiring multiplication and division.
Eighth Grade Standard
Analyze and solve linear equations and pairs of simultaneous linear equations.
Algebraic expressions and equations are used to model real-life problems and represent quantitative relationships, so that the numbers and symbols can be mindfully manipulated to reach a solution or make sense of the quantitative relationships.
Students will develop appropriate mathematical models that represent quantitative relationships in order to solve real-life problems.
High School Standard
Solve systems of equations.
There is often an optimal method of manipulating equations and inequalities to solve a mathematical problem; however, other methods; which may not be as efficient; can still provide insight into the problem.
Students will develop multiple mathematical models to solve real-life problems, and explain which of their models is most efficient and why.
This slide outlines the interconnectedness of Standards leading to Big Ideas leading to Learning Objectives. Encourage examining multiple standards to form a Big Idea resulting in Learning Objectives.
There are many resources that teachers and teams may find beneficial when beginning to select standards for their Objective Statements. Resources include, but are not limited to: current curriculum documents or standards of your content area and grade level.

16. Goldilocks Turn and Talk
Too Broad
Too Narrow
Just Right
If the SLO is too broad, then it's difficult to measure well because there is too much to cover and measure.
If the SLO is too narrow, then it may not be measuring anything beyond a single standard. This could lead to teaching content in piecemeal or fragmented ways, which won't help students see connections in what they learn.
One of the things you learn to finesse in writing a learning goal is finding out what is "just right." We call this the Goldilocks Dilemma. As she did, you need to keep trying to refine it to the right size.
Turn and talk to your elbow partner about learning objectives that are too broad or narrow or just right.
Share small group examples with the larger group.

17. Identify and Define Learning Objectives
Review curriculum and or content standards, to identify important content and skills to assess;
Visualize competent exiting learners; what should they know and be able to do at the end of the window of instruction?
Write learning objectives to focus on end results of instruction, not on instructional activities.
Think about these three steps and their application to defining learning objectives. Use these steps during the next application activity.
Review curriculum and or content standards, to identify important content and skills to assess;
Visualize competent exiting learners; what should they know and be able to do at the end of the window of instruction?
Write learning objectives to focus on end results of instruction, not on instructional activities.

18. Now You Try
On your own or with your small group, identify your Big Idea/Learning Objective(s) and cite the standards you used.

19. Steps to Creating an SLO- “ThinkSheet”
Identify Population and Purpose
Identify and Define Learning Objectives
Identify Instructional Strategies
Consider an Assessment Design
Prepare an Assessment
The next component of the SLO process is to identify key instructional strategies.
SLOs clearly identify the content to be addressed during the instructional interval, therefore, teachers need to be able to identify the specific instructional approaches they will use to meet the expectations set for student growth. This includes strategies designed to target subgroups of students, accelerate learning for struggling students or supplemental learning for advanced learners.

20. Instructional Strategies
The power of SLOs is in the instruction. Think about the various instructional activities that will be used to engage students with the material and enable them to meet the SLO. 
What instructional strategies will you use to move students toward the targets set for learning?
Think about how you will monitor student learning during instruction- formative assessments, learning tasks and activities, questioning strategies, group work, etc. What will you do when students are not meeting their targets for learning?
The description of strategies is not a laundry list of instructional methods a teacher may employ. Rather, these strategies should be research based, age appropriate for the targeted students, and be clearly connected to the achievement of the learning objective. For example, if a teacher’s SLO targets improvement for special education students, one strategy may be to employ co-teaching activities with the school special education specialist for a particular lesson.

21. Now You Try
On your own or with your small group, identify instructional strategies.

22. Steps to Creating an SLO- “ThinkSheet”
Identify Population and Purpose
Identify and Define Learning Objectives
Identify Instructional Strategies
Consider an Assessment Design
Prepare an Assessment
Selecting an appropriate assessment can be one of the most challenging and important steps of the SLO process. Teachers will need to determine how student learning will be measured to demonstrate growth toward the SLO. Assessments that are used in the SLO process should provide accurate and fair information about student performance. Appropriate measures of student learning progress differ substantially based on the learners’ grade level, content area, and ability. Therefore the type and format of assessments will vary based on the standards to be measured. Careful attention must be paid to how progress in relation to a given set of standards can most effectively be measured.

23. Assessment
Assessment is the process of collecting and interpreting information that progress toward or attainment of standards
Classroom assessment practices should provide accurate information that supports sound instructional decision making
Classroom assessment practices should provide consistent, dependable information

24. Assessment Design and Assessment Types
Common assessment types that may be used independently or together:
Selected response (multiple choice, matching, true/false)
Short answer (short constructed written response, fill in graphic organizer/diagram, explain your thinking, make and complete a table)
Extended response (essay or multi-step response)
Product (research paper, log, play, poem, model, multimedia products, portfolio)
Performance (demonstration, speech, presentation, science lab, performance, debate)
Process (creation, development, design, exploration, visualization, invention)

25. Guiding Questions -Developing an Assessment Design
What type of an assessment is appropriate for my population, purpose and learning expectations?
What should the structure and format of my assessment be?
How can I ensure that my student are actively engaged in the assessment process?
How much time and what resources are adequate for the assessment?
Consider assessments you have used in the past or currently use. Are there assessments that can be adapted or merged to become an SLO assessment?
When selecting assessments, the guiding questions ensure assessments are aligned to the students’ learning objectives and to the appropriate grade or content-specific standards:
What type of an assessment is appropriate for my population, purpose and learning expectations?
What should the structure and format of my assessment be?
How can I ensure that my student are actively engaged in the assessment process?
How much time and what resources are adequate for the assessment?
The assessment should allow high- and low-achieving students to adequately demonstrate their knowledge.

26. Assessment Performance Distribution – Just Right
Optimally, your pre-assessment should generate a distribution of scores that is balanced – meaning one distinguishes clusters of low from middle from high achievers as in this chart.

27. Assessment Performance Distribution – Too Difficult
This would be an example of a pre-assessment that is too difficult – there is very little variation in percentage correct. This would be very difficult to cluster low, middle and high achieving students.

28. Assessment Performance Distribution – Too Easy
This would be an example of a pre-assessment that is too easy – there is very little variation in percentage correct. This would be very difficult to cluster low, middle and high achieving students. Additionally, this pre-assessment does not provide enough capacity to demonstrate growth over time.

29. Standard Big Idea Learning Objective Assessment Options
Kindergarten Standard
Understand addition as putting together and adding to, and understand subtraction as taking apart and taking from.
Mathematical operations are used in solving problems in which a new value is produced from one or more values.
Students will develop appropriate mathematical models to solve authentic math tasks requiring addition and subtraction .
Scenario situations
Modeling with manipulatives
Writing mathematical models
Third Grade Standard
Represent and solve problems involving multiplication and division.
Students will develop appropriate mathematical models to solve authentic math tasks requiring multiplication and division.
Constructed response
Eighth Grade Standard
Analyze and solve linear equations and pairs of simultaneous linear equations.
Algebraic expressions and equations are used to model real-life problems and represent quantitative relationships, so that the numbers and symbols can be mindfully manipulated to reach a solution or make sense of the quantitative relationships.
Students will develop appropriate mathematical models that represent quantitative relationships in order to solve real-life problems.
Presentations
High School Standard
Solve systems of equations.
There is often an optimal method of manipulating equations and inequalities to solve a mathematical problem; however, other methods; which may not be as efficient; can still provide insight into the problem.
Students will develop multiple mathematical models to solve real-life problems, and explain which of their models is most efficient and why.
Has to be something you can assess with in instruction in a unit of time. Aligned to Instruction!

30. Now You Try
Share out, modify as needed, add final thoughts to think sheet

31. Steps to Creating an SLO- “ThinkSheet”
Identify Population and Purpose
Identify and Define Learning Objectives
Identify Instructional Strategies
Consider an Assessment Design
Prepare an Assessment
The last step today is practice preparing an assessment.
Remember, when creating or selecting an appropriate assessment, be sure that the assessment items/tasks cover the key content standards identified for the SLO and taught during the interval of instruction. Assessments should measure performance across a wide range of performance levels to ensure that they provide an accurate measure of achievement/growth for all students. Assessments do not need to be limited to pencil-and paper tests, but may include performance-based assessments as well where appropriate.

32. Aligning Learning Expectations and Assessments
Alignment between the knowledge, skills and abilities individual students are expected to demonstrate (what the assessment is intended to measure) and what the assessment actually measures; and
Aligning to learning expectations means the assessment measures specific expectations and not addressing other content.
Guiding Alignment Questions
Are there clear connections between my learning expectations and the assessment tasks?
Have I identified which standards and corresponding learning expectations have the highest priority or are most relevant?
Are there additional standards that are being assessed that haven’t been identified?
Does the assessment have an appropriate number of components to assess the various skills or knowledge that are relevant?

33. Types of Alignment
Content alignment refers to whether the assessment items or tasks are measuring the learning expectations they are intended to measure;
Coverage alignment refers to whether the set of items or tasks that make up the assessment measures all the identified standards and corresponding learning expectations for that assessment; and
Complexity alignment refers to whether the assessment items or tasks as a whole measure the full range or complexity of the knowledge, skills and abilities that are expected of students as defined in the learning expectations (balance between basic/simple and sophisticated/complex skills).
Thinking about the assessment idea in front of you….how does it align?

34. Develop an Assessment Design and Prepare an Assessment
Additional Considerations
Text complexity relative to reading level of students;
Amount of space for response or answers;
Clarity of formatting of questions or activities;
Clarity of diagrams and illustrations;
Method of delivery and scoring;
Clarity of verbal or written instructions to students;

35. Now You Try Prepare Your Assessment
Share out, modify as needed, add final thoughts to think sheet.
Prepare Your Assessment

36. Questions You Can’t Answer
Please submit via
Create google survey and insert link.
Exit Slip.