Teaching goals and learning goals are not the same thing. Learning goals specify student habits of mind, intellectual capacities, personal qualities—in essence what students will know, what they can do and what they will be like. Teaching goals focus on what teachers do (e.g., to explain specific content to students). The practice of lesson study involves a shift from teaching goals to learning goals—from thinking about what one does as a teacher to how students interpret the subject and how they will respond to teaching.

Sample Learning Goals from Different Disciplines