Saturday, September 15, 2012

Entry Nineteen: Setting Goals

We believe in the power of helping students set appropriate academic goals and holding them accountable to achieve them.


We begin by sharing stories with kids about famous people who set goals and worked to achieve them. Here are a few of our favorite titles:








Then we made these simple posters (we need to improve these for presentation, but they are a start!) These goals are taken directly from our standards so kids can choose a special project as their goal that is standards-based.


These next two forms are a huge part of teaching our students that it takes effort to achieve their goals. They track their goals, make notes of the ways they are working on achieving them, and even graph their progress. We make a huge celebration when students achieve their goals!




It's important to give kids time to process the most appropriate goal for them. These kids are looking at the goal posters and discussing which goal is the best for them. We gave kids a quick sentence starter to begin this conversation.
I want to choose the goal____ because____ (it challenges me, it's something I have already wanted to accomplish, it will make me a stronger third grader etc. We had tthem set goals, we looked at their test data to set "teacher goals" and we plan to ask parents to set goals at conferences. It's such a wonderful way to show that we are all in this together!






Visit my store on Teachers Pay Teachers for a free resource to help you begin teaching students the connection between effort and achievement!

2 comments:

  1. If you'd like a tool for setting your goals, you can use this web application:

    Gtdagenda.com

    You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, and a calendar.
    Syncs with Evernote and Google Calendar, and also comes with mobile version, and Android and iPhone apps.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's awesome! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete