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Wendy Says

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New Year, New Goals for Students

January 7, 2014 Tagged as Back to School, Goal Setting, Teacher Ideas

Welcome to 2014! One of my favorite things about returning from winter break is that my students always seem ready to buckle down and work. They’re over the holiday excitement and just a little bit wiser and more mature. I like to take the first week back to reevaluate learning goals with them—look at how far they’ve come and discuss where they can (and should) be by the end of the school year. Here, I’ll share with you my strategy to setting, and meeting, year-end learning goals.

How far have you come?

When setting goals, I think it’s important to first take a look at how far students have come since the beginning of the school year. If your district or school is like most, students likely took a beginning of the school year pre-test, plus additional assessments at the end of each quarter. With two quarters under their belts, students have a great picture of how much progress they’ve made. In my classroom, we create bar graphs with these benchmark test scores, to really drive the data home for the kids. It’s a great visual and they love to see the progress they’ve made. And, of course, we share this information with parents as well, either on my website or in a conference with the parents.

Where do you need to go?

Whether your students are ahead of the game or struggling to catch up, setting realistic goals will help them get to where they need to go academically. I like to sit one-on-one with students to develop these goals. We discuss what they’re doing to progress toward year-end success, and what they could do to garner even better results. For example, setting a goal for a student to earn an 80% on a year-end math assessment isn’t necessarily realistic if they scored a 38% on the last one. Take into account the amount of support available at home, the resources available at school, and the child’s motivation to improve. Maybe improving to a 55% is more realistic, making sure that the student and parent understand that the goals have been modified to the ability of the student.

How will you get there?

This is the key to success, and one that requires accountability from student, parent, and teacher. With the child (and parent, if possible), document what is required of each party to ensure the success of the student. What does the parent need to do? What should the child do? What will you do? Success is truly a partnership among all three, and getting buy-in from home often involves documenting your own piece to the puzzle. Be specific about how all the pieces fit together.

Reevaluate

I like to reevaluate strategies and goals on a regular basis, especially when I see that students are struggling or frustrated with their progress. Take the time to meet with students occasionally to discuss their progress and to ensure follow-through at home. It’s okay to change goals when needed, but be sure you’re not doing this because of a lack of support. This would be a time to involve your administration or child study team.

Setting goals is a necessary function in classrooms today. Without them, you’re simply pushing a cart forward with no destination in mind. You would never begin a trip or a race not knowing when or where you will stop. Students must know where their target is so they can celebrate small successes along the way. This will help give them the momentum to continue along the path to success in this school year and beyond. Happy new year!