To use the overarching instructional purposes to help you write learning intentions (LI) & success criteria (SC):

1. Enter the title of your unit.
2. Write a brief description of your lesson in the first column.
3. Find the overarching instructional purpose from the list on the right that you feel best matches the lesson.
4. Use the drop-down menu selector in the "Purpose" column to record the chosen purpose onto the row of the lesson description. (An abbreviated form of the purpose is shown in the selector, but the full form will be inserted in your column.)
5. After you have selected a purpose, a pop-up window will offer you a choice of guides for the learning intention. Choose the one you like best as your starting point.
6. The guide you chose and corresponding success criteria starters will appear in the right column for the lesson's row. Edit them as needed, including removing the suggested starters or adding your own.
7. Click "Ready to Print" to print your table.

You can change your mind about the purpose in any row at any time by selecting a new purpose in the second column for the row. (This will erase your learning intentions & success criteria, though, so be careful.)

Overarching Instructional Purposes

• Establish a definition / meaning of a new concept or term
• Determine important mathematical characteristics or properties
• Understand how a new model or representation works
• Develop, learn, review, or practice a strategy / process / skill
• Explore or learn the relationships between and among representations, concepts, characteristics, properties, etc.
• Extend previous understanding of a concept (e.g. whole number operations or area measurement) to a new and related context (e.g. fraction operations, surface area measurement)
• Understand or review a concept that underlies a procedure
• Develop formulas / understanding where formulas come from
• Develop flexible thinking or multiple strategies for approaching a problem

Choose the LI guideline you prefer to start with. You'll be able to edit it.

There are two interactives on this website focused on using the purpose of a lesson to guide your development of learning intentions and success criteria. This interactive is intended as a planning tool you can use when you are planning lessons, while the other interactive ("Lesson Purposes, Practice Interactive") is specifically designed to help you practice writing learning intentions and success criteria using the purpose of your lesson. (For more on learning intentions and success criteria, and on overarching instructional purposes, see Chapter 2, "Using Mathematics Learning Intentions and Success Criteria," of Bringing Math Students into the Formative Assessment Equation: Tools and Strategies for the Middle Grades.)

This interactive is designed to help you think about the overarching instructional purposes to lessons and lesson activities, and to help you write learning intentions and success criteria that match those purposes. When you choose a particular purpose for a lesson, the interactive provides editable guidelines for the learning intention and success criteria. You are free to modify these guidelines as you wish, including adding or removing success criteria.

You may find you want to work on the development of your learning intentions and success criteria over multiple sessions. If so, please note that you cannot directly save your work for future editing, but you can select and copy your table and then paste it into any word processing document. You can also use the "Ready to Print" button for a more printable format.

©Education Development Center, Inc.