I say ‘goal’, you say… (fill the blank)
Did goal SETTING come to mind? We see and hear about a lot of goal setting in schools. Goal setting for your Professional Development Plan, goal setting in your PLC, students setting goals for the year, the term or the current learning. We see goals on desks, walls and various documents.
And then, we had an epiphany! Setting a goal is part of something bigger. Goals determine our direction and ideally pinpoint what we want to learn, the gap we want to close, or our next learning priority. In the article, ‘Goal Setting: A Scientific Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals’, James Clear uses the analogy of rudders and oars. Goals are like the rudder because they determine your direction. Oars determine your progress because to make progress you have to row. Setting the direction is not enough.
So what are these ‘oars’ that help us make progress towards our goal?
What are the principles of Goals for Learning?
A synthesis of current research about Goals for Learning is summarised as five principles in Figure 1. Together these principles support progress towards a goal.
Figure 1
Underlying these principles is the understanding that each principle of goals for learning can be
teacher directed,
co-developed between teachers and students, or
student directed.
Imagine a sound board or mixing board. The technician takes multiple input signals—such as microphones, instruments, voices —and merges them together so they can be sent as one signal.
Figure 2
Similarly, each principle of goals for learning can have varying degrees of input from teachers and students depending on a range of factors, including developmental stage of learners, individual skill of learners, content being taught etc… (Figure 2) In some instances the teacher will direct, and explicitly teach, each principle. In other instances the level of teacher input and student input will vary across each principle. All principles contribute to the student’s goals for learning.
What are we trying to say? There is no ‘right’ way to work through these principles. The goal (there - we said it) is students using goals FOR LEARNING long after they leave our guidance and support.
How might we move the input from teachers to students?
Idea 1: Sources of evidence
Success criteria, feedback and assessments are all sources of evidence that students can use to determine their goals.
Heat Maps are a way of communicating success criteria and can be used as a tool for self-assessment, setting a goal and monitoring progress. For more information and ideas, head to our #4 Micro Move Heat Maps. See Figure 3 where students used a heat map in a Middle School Visual Art lesson to measure progress from the start to end of a lesson.
Figure 3
For more ideas about using assessments and evidence check out our #8 Micro Move Students Making Sense of Evidence.
Idea 2: Whole Class Goals for Learning
Some learning lends itself to the whole class working through a similar plan and process for monitoring whilst individuals still have their own goals.
One example of this is ‘Tables Tuesdays’ where a session each week is dedicated to students learning multiplication facts. Each student uses a quiz and a multiplication facts (tables) grid to identify and record specific groups of facts they can retrieve and cannot yet retrieve. They then use this information to set goals - some independently and some with teacher support. Student goals might range from ‘Recall my 2, 5, 10 multiplication facts when they are all mixed up’ to ’Use my multiplication facts to solve two digit by one digit multiplication’. Regardless of the goal, students are explicitly taught how to learn multiplication facts to ‘retrieval’ (see Figure 4) and a process for monitoring their progress.
Figure 4
How might a similar process work for chemistry calculations, letter or numeral formation, punctuation, recall of vocabulary and other things we want our learners to retrieve? Where might input move from teacher directed to student driven?
Another idea!
If you are interested in learning more about Goals for Learning, reach out to us at CT-ed.
Goals for Learning is one of the How to… of High Impact Strategies we can support you and your learners with.
You might also be interested in the Edutopia 60-Second Strategy: NAEM tracker for middle school students https://www.edutopia.org/video/60-second-strategy-naem-tracker or TAG Feedback https://www.edutopia.org/video/60-second-strategy-tag-feedback
References
Clear, J. (2013). Goal Setting: A Scientific Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals. James Clear. https://jamesclear.com/goal-setting
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