Developing Student Learning Objectives. The process of using SLOs to measure student growth begins with the important task of attaching structure to student learning expectations. Teachers, either individually or in teams, are encouraged to assume much of the responsibility for SLO development, but the principal or evaluator’s guidance throughout the process is valuable to ensuring that SLOs are both meaningful and rigorous. A process for developing SLOs is outlined in the sections below, and additional examples of SLOs are available in the Appendix. Identifying Core Concepts and Standards Developing SLOs begins with asking the question: What do I most want my students to know and be able to do by the end of the instructional period? Establishing student learning priorities may be influenced by district or school goals and should be aligned to learning standards. To guide the process, educators may also rely on student performance descriptors, performance assessments or goals established collaboratively by teams of teachers. When appropriate, the concepts may be matched to social, emotional or behavioral learning when teaching such skills is an explicit and central component of the curriculum for which an educator bears instructional responsibility.
