Student Goal-Setting

Part 9 of the Gifted Coordinator Toolkit

Student agency increases learning by providing the students with some voice and choice in the learning process. Otherwise, students are simply attempting to be compliant and/or guess what they need to know and do to be successful. One step in that process is goal setting, in particular goals based on strengths, which empower the most able learners to grow academically and personally. If you are ready to implement this practice, use the guiding questions to develop your plan.

Guiding Questions:

• Do students currently set and monitor goals themselves? Sadly, most students do not participate in goal setting exercises. If they do, it may be a district expectation or a campus practice. Determine where each of your campuses is on this continuum.
• If so, what is the focus of the goals? (academic, grades, assessment, growth, affective) If students do set goals, the most common is academic tied to some kind of data point. For GT-identified students, that misses the opportunity to support their affective needs. The same can be said for other students who need to work on executive function or social-emotional skills. For the academic goals, do they set a specific score goal or a growth goal? Since students begin at different places and progress at different rates, consider using growth measures to determine if a student has met a goal.
• What ownership/agency should your students have in the goal-setting and attainment process? If you ask a student where they are in their learning, they either will not know or they will give a date or page number. What if students could articulate they are 30% of the way to mastery or they have completed 60% of the unit requirements? Even better, what if they could articulate the standard and what they could actually do toward it? For example, if the standard is to multiply two digits by two digits, as a student I would be able to say the standard, explain what it means, share my own success metrics, and show how I know I have mastered it. What incredible ownership we can give students.
• Is there a teacher or team already using student-led goal-setting and student-led conferences? If you have an early adopter, consider learning what has worked and what has not from her. Save yourself some time and angst so you can then focus on how to deepen that practice and scale it to the other classes and schools.
• If not, what teacher or team with an equipped administrator is ready to do so? If you do not have anyone who has implemented this practice, who is ready? You can start with just one teacher during one window of the year, perhaps a grading cycle, to experiment on systems and practices that worked for the students and teacher. What would need to be changed for older or younger students? What resources are needed for the students and teacher? Be sure to include the campus administrator in the process so they feel some ownership, too.
• What goal-setting model will you use? The most common model for goals in the SMART goal. While a good model, younger students will struggle with some of the requirements. Consider providing pre-written goals for your youngest students, goal stems for your middle students, and narrowed areas for your older students. Doing this also helps the teacher focus her support to the areas chosen. Students still have choice, but they won’t get bogged down in the minutia of writing the actual goal.
• What data will the students use to set goals? While some goals should not be tied to data, we are in schools so a data goal is imperative, too. For an academic goal, consider using your MAP data which has a report for what growth is expected in each area for each student. If you do not use MAP, avoid goals that compare scores for multiple units which may not have the same content. For example, I would not want to compare my data from the geometry and measurement unit with my data from the fractions unit. The assessments should be measuring different content so the scores are not related.
• How will success metrics be identified? In other words, how will you know when the goal is achieved? Strong goals with vague or ambiguous success metrics will lack the specificity to drive progress. Students must know what it looks and sounds like when they have achieved their goal. Consider providing examples of these to students. You may need to have teachers go through this entire process before having them implement it with students so they understand it and can provide appropriate support for students who struggle with it.
• How will we scaffold for younger or less able students? In addition to the suggestions above, consider first explicitly teaching about goals and the goal-setting process with a concrete example. Have students see how far they can jump, decide what actions they should take to jump farther, have them complete the actions for a couple of weeks, and then check their distance again. Not all students will jump farther but all will have a better understanding of the process.
• How will we communicate this process to families? Grades are the most common form of performance communicated to families. Also, they often expect everything to be graded. Moving to use goals to measure progress will be new for them and they may not know how to use the information. Consider providing a short video that explains the process and desired outcomes. Be proactive in addressing what will be graded and what is for practice and growth. Explain the why. A live meeting may be in order; however, if you have GT teachers on the campuses, consider empowering them and the administrator to handle the communication. They have the relationships with the families and they will know how to best communicate this change.
• What training will teachers need? When and how will it be provided? By whom? This is another opportunity for Job-Embedded Professional Development. Consider embedding their role in the PLC process while they are examining data anyway. Help them plan out the goal-setting process as part of the lesson design so it is seamless. The students will accept it as part of the learning process and not feel so overwhelmed.
• How will resistance be addressed? It is inevitable. Each person will approach this process with a different set of experiences. Provide an opportunity for concerns to be shared in a safe environment with ample time to address them prior to implementation. Have them share times they have set goals and how they felt when they saw their own growth. That builds a desire for their students to feel the same way. Many times, when people feel heard, they feel much more confident about moving forward.
• How will we celebrate successes which may include progress in the process or goal attainment? Celebrations should happen often. Be cautious about what you celebrate, though. You may want to celebrate those who reach their goals and you should. Consider celebrating progress, though. Think about the students for whom learning is more difficult. How can you help them set attainable goals that inspire and motivate them to persevere? Any growth is worthy of celebration.

Once you initiate the goal-setting process and students taste the successes of knowing and being able to communicate their growth, you will have momentum on your side. Goals as part of a student’s personalized learning plan, a topic gaining traction in the GT community, should definitely be explored more deeply.

Download the worksheet and watch the related video: