Co-construct an understanding of success
Updated: Sep 11
Co-constructing success criteria does not mean asking learners to invent what counts as success. The curriculum still matters. The learning intention still matters. Educator expertise still matters.
Co-construction is about involving learners in making sense of what success looks like, sounds like and requires, so the criteria become something they understand and can use. You can co-construct shared criteria for knowledge, skill or dispositions.
Used well, co-construction shifts learners from being told the criteria, to noticing and understanding quality, to using that understanding to influence their learning.
What are some key moves for co-constructing success criteria?
1. Start with the learning intention
Be clear about the intended learning before co-constructing what success looks like. The goal is not: “What would you like the success criteria to be?” Instead:
“This is what we are learning. What might successful learning look like?”
Co-construction creates influence within clear learning boundaries, rather than handing over responsibility for curriculum decisions learners are not yet equipped to make.
2. Give learners something to think with
Don't ask learners to generate success criteria from a blank page. Provide examples, exemplars, works-in-progress, experiences or contrasting samples that make differences in quality visible.
Ask learners to notice:
What works here?
What do you notice the writer/mathematician/artist/resilient learner is doing?
Where can you see evidence of that?
What makes this more successful?
Examples give learners something concrete against which to test their thinking.
3. Let learners do the noticing
Resist the temptation to point out every feature yourself. Give learners time to examine, compare, annotate, discuss and explain what they notice. Your role is to select useful examples and ask questions that direct attention without doing all the thinking.
If the educator identifies every feature and learners simply agree, the criteria may have been shared, but they haven't really been co-constructed.
4. Name and refine what matters
Learners may notice many things and not everything they notice belongs in the success criteria. Bring their observations together. Group similar ideas, clarify misconceptions and connect learners' language to the language of the curriculum. Move from: “It has lots of detail.” towards: “The details provide evidence that supports the argument.”
Co-construction is not accepting every suggestion. Educator expertise helps the class distil what matters for this particular learning.
5. Keep the criteria focused
Don't let co-construction produce an enormous list.
Ask: Which of these features matter most for what we are learning right now?
Select a manageable number of criteria learners can remember, understand and actually use. The goal isn't to capture everything that could make the work better. It is to make the most important features of the current learning clear.
6. Use the criteria and be prepared to refine them.
The conversation that creates the criteria is only the beginning. Return to the criteria during modelling, practice, feedback and reflection:
“Which criterion are you working on?”
“Where can you see evidence of it in your work?”
“Compare your work with the example. What have you improved?”
“Which criterion would be the most useful next focus for you?”
"Is there anything we should add, remove or change to make this criteria clearer?"
This is where co-construction begins to support self-assessment, peer feedback and metacognition: learners understand the target well enough to compare their current work with it and decide where to next.
7. Increase influence as learners become ready
Co-construction can sit on a continuum.
At first, the educator might determine the criteria and involve learners in unpacking what they mean.
Later, learners might identify criteria from exemplars, refine the wording, suggest additions or help decide which criteria need attention.
With increasing capability, learners can have greater influence, but if you invite their input, that input needs to be genuine and capable of influencing the outcome.
The goal isn't for learners to become better at reciting educator-created success criteria.
The goal is for learners to develop such a strong understanding of quality that they can recognise it, talk about it, compare their work against it and use it to make decisions about what to do next.
Show quality. Notice together. Name what matters. Use it to move learning forward.
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