Guidelines for Identifying Standards and Targets:

1. Identify the content standards, upon which your targets will be based. This is best done communally and using the NSES or other appropriate standards.
2. Identify the type(s) of target(s) that you want to assess--knowledge, reasoning, skill, and/or product.
3. Write out your targets--they should be presented as goal statements.
4. Check to make sure that your standards and targets are aligned, and make sure that your targets cover all aspects of student academic success you wish to assess. Remembering that the complexity of your targets increases the complexity of the assessment tasks you design.
5. Make your standards and targets available for review to students, parents, and other stakeholders in the community.