(I’m republishing my best posts from the first half of the year. You can see the entire list of them here)
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Over the past twenty years, I’ve tried out MANY different kinds of strategies to support student goal-setting. You can read about all of them at Best Posts On Students Setting Goals.
They all pretty much failed.
The primary reason for their failures was due to the challenge of consistently finding the time to make it a priority – to conference, review, reset; then conference, review, reset, etc.
My most recent attempt was last year, when I tried an overly ambitious strategy, detailed at The “Student Personal Reports” I’m Co-Creating With My ELL Newcomer Students & What We’re Doing With Them.
So, this year, I revisited the idea again, with this criteria in mind:
- Students and I can realistically find time to do it consistently
- The goal-setting form is short-and-simple
- There’s a simple way for students to reflect on how they are doing regularly
Here is how I’m trying to make all this happen:
Goal-Setting Sheet
First, I created a simple one-page goal-setting sheet (which is downloadable here).
I’m going to show an image of each of the four sections with an explanation of its purpose.
This is Part One:
I wanted to begin by giving students an opportunity to reflect on what they had been doing, and provide everyone at least one option to circle. They can also write in other things they did. Beginning on a positive note, I think, is important.
Parts Two and Three:
I’ve previously shared how students can view a visualization of their results from the weekly Friday formative assessments we do,
Students complete this form when they are meeting with me, and I encourage them to be realistic when they are projecting future scores. Most are envisioning a gradual increase.
Part Four:
This, of course, is where “the rubber meets the road.” If students are going to increase their test results, most are going to have to do something differently from what they have been doing. They can also write down other ideas.
Goal-Setting Process
This week, and my plan for the first week of every month, is that during one period of my ELL Newcomers class for a three days I will meet individually with each student to review the sheet. During those periods, a student teacher, bilingual aide, and peer tutors will handle the rest of the class.
I’m having students take a photo of the completed sheet on their phones, and I’m keeping the original.
Every Monday, students complete a short “Weekly Check-In” via Google Forms. Two of the questions are “What is your goal for this week?” and “Did you achieve last week’s goal?” I’m planning on distributing – and recollecting – the goal sheets each Monday before they answer those questions. Yes, they’ll have them on their phones, but having students take out phones creates a whole new set of challenges.
Students will do this for four weeks, then meet with me individually to review how they did on their goals, and then create a new sheet for the next month.
The first meetings went well today. Fingers-crossed, this process will achieve better results than my past attempts.
They can’t be worse!
(I’m republishing my best posts from the first half of the year. You can see the entire list of them here) Over the past twenty years, I’ve tried out MANY different kinds of strategies to support student goal-setting. You can read about all of them at Best Posts On Students Setting Goals. They a look back Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…