Student Learning Objectives (SLO)

This template, developed by the Maryland State Department of Education, includes the components of an objective summary statement, data review and baseline evidence, student population, learning content, instructional interval, target, evidence of growth, strategies, professional development and support, and results. The template also includes a place to track the initial conference, approval, midinterval review, end of instructional interval conference and the final rating. 

The Maryland State Department of Education developed a guidebook for the use of SLOs in its state model for educator effectiveness. The guidebook describes the rationale for using SLOs, how SLOs fit into the Maryland’s State Model for Educator Effectiveness, what an SLO is, and how to use SLOs to evaluate educator effectiveness. The guidebook also discusses how SLOs relate to professional practice. 

The Hawaii Department of Education developed a presentation on how to rate the quality of an SLO. The purpose of this presentation is to increase the understanding of what constitutes a quality SLO by using the Rating for the Quality of SLOs rubric. The presentation discusses each component of Hawaii’s SLOs and examines the differences between the three levels within the rubric.

This guidebook from the Hawaii Department of Education provides step-by-step instructions to help teachers with planning to write their SLOs. The guidebook provides a brief description for each component of Hawaii’s SLOs and guiding questions to complete that section of the SLO. In order to help teachers choose an appropriate assessment, the guidebook includes a checklist to assess the quality of assessments used in SLOs. 

This tool from the Hawaii Department of Education is a rubric for rating the quality of SLOs. It can be used by teachers, administrators, and evaluators to evaluate the components of SLOs and to identify any areas that may need improvements in order for the SLO to be an acceptable quality. The rubric includes key indicators for each component of Hawaii’s SLOs, including the learning goal, the assessments and scoring criteria, expected targets, and instructional strategies. 

The Hawaii Department of Education developed a template for teachers to complete their SLOs. This template requires the population, learning goal, assessment, scoring criteria, expected targets, instructional strategies, and the final results. 

This sample SLO from the Hawaii Department of Education is focused on level 2 Japanese for Grades 9–12.

This Hawaii Department of Education sample SLO is focused on world languages for Grades 7–8.

This sample SLO from the Hawaii Department of Education is focused on world languages for kindergarten.

This sample SLO from the Hawaii Department of Education is focused on special education in mathematics for Grades 1–5.