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Research Guide (Grades 7-12): Goal Setting

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Research Guide (Grades 7-12): Goal Setting

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Research Guide (Grades PreK-6): Goal Setting

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Research Guide (Grades PreK-6): Goal Setting

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CCC Questionnaire Technical Report: Goal Setting

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CCC Questionnaire Technical Report: Goal Setting

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SMART goals are specific, measurable, action-oriented, rigorous, and tracked. Help your students develop them through a series of ongoing peer interviews.

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Are you required to create SMART Goals for yourself as a teacher?

We've had this acronym around for a while and I decided to try it out with my class this week as our goal-setting was feeling too broad and unfocused.

If you haven't heard, SMART Goals stand for:

Several of these words weren't easy for the kids to understand, so we spent some of the morning talking through each point and giving some examples and non-examples of each.

We came up with this mini-anchor chart that's now hanging in the back of our class:

I gave them the direction of "weekly"-- I want them to start small and we can work out from there. Plus, our Friday mornings have this perfect chunk of time for reflection, so I'm hoping this short time period will help kids reach some manageable goals and be able to feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of each week.

Every student then received a sticky note. I had them put their name on the back and I gave them two sentence starters for the front:

In one week, I will....

I know I've made my goal when...

This was the first week we've done this work, so I wasn't expecting perfection, but I was pleasantly surprised with how many kids could now generate some legitimate goals for their week ahead. Several revolved around homework, some dealt with classroom behavior, and others with academics.

As they finished, I had them place their notes on a large piece of chart paper I had laminated and titled, "Our Class Goals":

We are a "Leader in Me" School, so these goals worked perfectly with Habit #2: Begin with the end in mind.

This chart is now hanging in the back of the classroom with their stickies in their Class Number spots and will be clearly visible to them throughout the week. It will become a focus piece during our Morning Meeting and I am excited to reflect on these each week to see how well we did. I will share our reflections (as well as "Rewarding" ideas) in a later post, but in the meantime, I hope this gave you some ideas for how you can set up goals in your own classroom this year!

Happy goal-setting!

Find more Goal-Setting Posts here:

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Are you required to create SMART Goals for yourself as a teacher? We've had this acronym around for a while and I decided to try it out with my class this week as our goal-setting was feeling too broad and unfocused.

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Using this Cool It! video, children learn the art of goal setting. The instructor, Kelsey, gives the group some categories, such as friends/family and school/education, to choose from and visualize/write what they want to have or change within that category. Then, the group writes a paragraph about their goal using specific details.

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6 Activities That Inspire A Goal-Setting Mindset In Students

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6 Activities That Inspire A Goal-Setting Mindset In Students

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When researchers from the University of Scranton tracked 200 people who had made New Year's resolutions, they found that close to 80 percent kept their pledges for one week-but just 19 percent managed to stick to them for a period of two years.

There are plenty of reasons resolutions fall flat. We tend to set "unattainable goals-ones that are too difficult for us to meet because we don't have the energy, skills, or resources required to bring them to fruition," writes Haiyang Yang, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, for the Harvard Business Review. Often, our goals are too vague, or we neglect to plan for unanticipated "external forces," Yang and his co-authors assert.

Framing goals so they're realistic, achievable, and even motivating-and then developing the habits to monitor progress and stick with them over the long haul-are critical components of successful goal setting, research shows, but these aren't skills we're born with, they tend to require planning and practice.

For students, learning to set and meet goals is an important competency that, over time, places the responsibility of meeting academic objectives squarely in their hands. But to be effective, teaching them these skills should start small. "Too often, we ask students to tackle their areas of greatest deficit prematurely," writes Maurice J. Elias, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University. "First, we need to have them build skills and confidence in an area that is genuinely important to them, and then they need to have a success experience. From small successes, larger successes can be built."

Carving out the time to teach kids these highly transferable skills-across grade levels and subject areas-is worth the effort and can lead students to "feel in control of their learning," writes NWEA research scientist Chase Nordengren for Phi Delta Kappan. "Effective goal-setting practices help students focus on specific outcomes, encourage them to seek academic challenges, and make clear the connection between immediate tasks and future accomplishments."

Here are six activities to help scaffold the process of goal setting, providing students with a deeper understanding of how to recognize when they need to set a goal, how to think about their own progress, and how to move forward when they encounter hurdles along the way:

1. Start Early and Take Your Time: As early as kindergarten, kids can begin visualizing and articulating personal and academic goals, says Alissa Alteri Shea, a first-grade teacher in Western Massachusetts. To get her students started, Shea asks them to reflect on their hopes and dreams for the school year ahead. Structured reflection prompts like "Why do we come to school?" get kids thinking and talking about what they would like to accomplish.

Shea facilitates these conversations over the course of several days-to illustrate that "setting learning goals takes time and requires thoughtfulness"-recording each student's answer into a class list. Some goals emerge slowly, she notes, as students acclimate to day-to-day classroom and school routines. After a week has passed, each child selects a goal from the co-created list. With paper, markers, crayons, or watercolors, students illustrate their goals and share them with the class.

2. Keep it Simple: To help upper elementary and middle school students develop the habit of creating, planning, and reflecting on goals, educational consultant Stephanie Toro suggests starting small. For a few minutes each morning, ask students to imagine and select a new task or skill they'd like to develop, then write it down on a sticky note. Each goal should be something simple that demonstrates a clear behavior, like "Try to share more of my ideas in class" or "Listen to others more," says Toro. Because the note itself acts as a quick visual reminder, students can place it on the corner of their desk or anywhere prominent where they will see it throughout the day.

As the week comes to a close, students spend some time reflecting on their goals and why they chose them, as well as what choices helped or hindered their progress. Questions can range from "How did you progress toward your goals?" to "What were some of the wins for the week?"

3. Tap Into Dreams: At the beginning of each school year, eighth-grade English teacher Cathleen Beachboard schedules a check-in with each one of her students to ask them a series of questions about their interests, goals, and what they feel they excel at. It's both a get-to-know-you exercise for Beachboard and an intro to teaching her students the complex work of goal-setting.

One student planned to travel to Spain, attend college, and eventually become CEO of a company, Beachboard recalls. Together, they broke down the goals into smaller steps and plotted the points for achieving these lofty goals: a beginner Spanish class to start, earning top grades in math, taking accounting in high school, and learning to read at a lexile level of 1,340.

To keep her students motivated and accountable, Beachboard paired them up with goal buddies and asked them to track their progress in a spreadsheet over the course of nine weeks.

4. Make Goal-Setting Visual: Challenging students to regularly visualize and communicate what they care about and want to work toward builds motivation and confidence, writes educational consultant Catlin Tucker for her blog. One way to do this is by having them create vision boards. "In the day-to-day craziness of life, it's easy to move from one task to another without stopping to take inventory of where we currently are, and where we hope to be one day. The same is true for our students," Tucker writes. "I want them to reflect on and articulate what they care about and want to work toward."

While students can choose from a variety of materials and mediums-creating a collage of clippings from old magazines, for example, or using digital tools like Canva or Google Slides-Tucker says the process should begin with space and time to "reflect on what is important to them personally and academically." Try asking questions like, "What motivates you?" or "What are you hoping to accomplish or achieve this year?"

5. Set stretch goals: As a way to challenge her students to set and exceed their own expectations, Beachboard carves out time each week for them to set or revise goals for themselves that are connected to the curriculum and their own learning.

During the course of a lesson, students practice a number of skills and learn new concepts. Toward the end of each class, students pair up with a classmate to give and receive feedback: a glow-something the student did well in the lesson-and a grow-something the student can work on. Students use the feedback as well as their own view of their performance to set what Beachboard calls a weekly stretch goal, a goal that requires a higher amount of effort for students to achieve, recording their progress on a Feedback Tracking Form.

"Students start to see trends in the areas that they need to grow in," Beachboard explains. "'I'm doing well with describing sentences but need to use more adjectives. I can be more descriptive.' Being more descriptive then becomes a goal which they work toward."

6. Imagine the goal and the hurdles: The successful pursuit of a goal requires students to avoid indulging in the fantasy of a desired outcome and its benefits, keeping both feet firmly planted on the ground.

When psychologist Angela Duckworth and a team of researchers taught middle school students the metacognitive skills that combine "mental elaboration of a desired future and the present reality standing in the way,"-an exercise called mental contrasting-they found that the intervention "significantly improved" the students' report card grades, their attendance, and behavior. This process results in "a strong mental association between future and reality" that motivates students to work toward overcoming any obstacles in order to achieve their desired outcome.

Students start by imagining an objective or target, as well as the positive and negative consequences that may come from achieving the goal. For example, a student might imagine practicing her soccer skills over the summer, and how she might make the team this year if she works hard. She realizes she'll have less time for homework and friends after school, but decides that the positive outcome outweighs the negative.

Next, she identifies obstacles that stand in her way-time, resources, or knowledge, for example-and plots a strategy for overcoming them. Taking private soccer lessons with a coach, for example, could help her understand the skills she'll need to focus on to achieve her goal.

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6 Activities That Inspire A Goal-Setting Mindset In Students

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When researchers from the University of Scranton tracked 200 people who had made New Year's resolutions, they found that close to 80 percent kept their pledges for one week-but just 19 percent managed to stick to them for a period of two years. There are plenty of reasons resolutions fall flat.

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Whether you have small dreams or lofty expectations, setting goals allows you to plan how you want to move through life. Some achievements can take a lifetime to attain, while others can be completed in the course of a day. Whether you're...

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Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI)

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Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI)

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Click "Download" to view video.

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Grit Curriculum Lesson: Setting S.M.A.R.T Goals

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Grit Curriculum Lesson: Setting S.M.A.R.T Goals

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Grit Curriculum Lesson: Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals

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Setting long-term goals is a key part of learning to be gritty. Teacher Beth Perkins helps her fifth graders evaluate their real-life goals to understand the elements that make up the best ones.

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Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI)

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Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI)

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In our classroom, each student has a data binder in which they set goals, collect data, and reflect on their work and goals. We call this binder their "STAR" binder. This stands for Students Taking Academic Responsibility. We have done quite a bit of goal setting this year, but I feel that the students are not always focused on reaching their goals. They forget about the goals when they are on a page in their binder and when it is out of sight...it is out of their mind. I saw an idea on twitter and I thought that it may be the perfect solution to our problem.

I made this grid and posted it on my wall right by where they line up when we leave the classroom. It is a constant reminder of what their goals are on a daily basis. As with everything that I do in the classroom, I have tweaked this process along the way. As you can see, some students had a couple of post-it notes in their square because they were still working on their old goal. Some students just kept adding post-it notes and never taking down their old goals. Some students were setting very broad goals or goals that were very far out in the future. After taking time to reflect on our goals in class each Friday, the students realized that they needed to narrow the focus of their goals. On Monday when they arrive in the morning, I have them get settled and think about a goal that they want to focus on for the week. I have the students set a SMART goal that they can measure and decide if they have actually reached it come Friday when we reflect.

We usually share our goals on Monday during morning meeting and then we reflect on them on Friday during morning meeting or even later in the day. The students are getting much better at writing meaningful SMART goals and really trying to reach them by Friday, if not sooner! I am even setting a SMART goal each week with them and I have found it has helped me reach my goal by having it posted in the classroom for all of my little friends to see! The students will often remind each other of their goals, whether it is an academic or a behavior goal, and they will even update their goal as the week goes on. It is also a great visual reminder for me to let me know what I can be working on with each student during that week. These goals are making us more focused and more accountable as well!

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In our classroom, each student has a data binder in which they set goals, collect data, and reflect on their work and goals. We call this binder their "STAR" binder. This stands for Students Taking Academic Responsibility. We have done quite a bit of goal setting this year, but I feel that the students are not always focused on reaching their goals.

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Implementing a Goal-Setting Intervention in an Afterschool Program

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Implementing a Goal-Setting Intervention in an Afterschool Program

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Skills for Healthy Living: Goal Setting | PBS Leaning Media

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Skills for Healthy Living: Goal Setting | PBS Leaning Media

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Setting Goals and Developing A Plan | PBS LearningMedia

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Find lessons on Setting Goals and Developing A Plan for all grades. Free interactive resources and activities for the classroom and home.

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12 Goal-Setting Activities for Families (Ages 4–7)

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12 Goal-Setting Activities for Families (Ages 4–7)

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Goals are necessary for success. Learn ten fun and exciting goal-setting activities for kids that you can enjoy with family!

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

When middle and high school students set short- and long-term goals, they can see a path to the success they hope for.

"If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves."
-Thomas Edison

I learned that quote from Wendy Beth Rosen's Self-Smart. Taking it seriously, Wendy suggests some areas where students'-and adults'-self-assessments can lead to greater accomplishments and personal satisfaction. Many distractions and challenges in our lives threaten to throw us off our path, or keep us from knowing what our path is. Setting explicit goals for success and tracking our progress toward them is a way to increase our chances of finding the success we hope for.

I'd like to share a method of goal-tracking that can be used by students and educators in ongoing ways, as well as at specific points when they're experiencing uncertainty or setbacks. These also have value for promoting positive mental health in school.

Setting and Tracking Goals

1. Academics

2. Social life

3. Sports and exercise

4. Healthy eating

5. Family and community

6. Hobbies and interests

7. Screen time

8. Long-term plans

Middle and high school are particularly important times for students to become consciously aware of and intentional about key choices: what they're putting into their bodies; how the way they are spending their time helps them reach their larger purposes; who they're spending their time with; and what they're doing to contribute to their families, schools, and communities.

At the beginning of the school year and at each marking period, students in middle and high school should record in a journal their goals in these eight areas:

In working with middle school students, for example, I have seen them set goals ranging from "eating better food at lunch" to "being a great guitar player" to "being an NBA star." In all cases, we want to help students be clear about their goals (in the first case, "to be a healthy person") and to set realistic short-term goals on the way to their long-term goal (for the guitar and basketball players, finding time for regular practice with feedback). For these students, and all students, goals provide anchors, especially valuable in high winds and rough seas.

All of the eight areas of life above matter, and academic success is related to all of them. Having a way to separate them, document progress, and create priorities is important. Students need help to be successful even when they have positive aspirations. A sure way to not succeed is trying to make progress in too many areas at once, so help students find one, two, or three areas to prioritize for a marking period. Revisit these priorities with them and see if follow-up goals need to be set in these areas or if new areas should be prioritized. Keeping to no more than three at a time is vital, because even if we might need to change in eight areas, we can't track that many. Slow and steady wins the race.

Tracking also helps ensure that a given area is not neglected. When we see that things might have been neglected, we can make some adjustments.

The main point of setting goals is to help students take realistic steps to achieve them. Many educators find that using the SMART format -goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely-is practical and reasonable, and keeps students on track.

When Can This Happen?

This kind of journaling is ideally suited to advisory or extended home room periods. Advisory periods are supposed to focus on the whole child, and the eight areas provide broad coverage. Journaling also fosters communication between advisory teachers and those who focus on these areas in schools, including subject area teachers, "specials" teachers (including health and physical education teachers), and staff running extracurricular activities. In addition, the advisory period can be used for pair and group problem-solving to help overcome obstacles students face as they pursue their goals.

One way to help students achieve their goals is to pair them up to help one another with goal-setting and monitoring. Students see each other in various school contexts and can be helpful outside of formal class time.

Having communal, whole-class conversations about goal-setting creates a new mindset in students and fosters cooperation and mutual improvement because students' goals are not solely their responsibility. We all get better when each of us gets better. So there is an expectation that goals set will be shared-perhaps with classmates and certainly with other teachers. (This expectation of sharing should ensure that personal goals related to family issues stay out of these conversations, as they require more professional and confidential follow-up.)

A helpful way to introduce the journaling is to ask students to reflect on the opening quote from Edison, taking a position as to whether they agree, disagree, or are not sure about it, and why. Have students share their rationales in small groups and then share out with the larger class. Ensuring that students understand they have more potential than most of them realize is a critical preliminary step to making goal journaling an authentic activity for them.

The Same Goals Are Useful for Adults

This activity is also relevant for adults. Educators have a lot on their plates, and having a way to make sure that one's learning, family, health habits, interests, and long-term plans are front of mind (even if not always front of action) keeps us grounded.

Devoting regular time in professional learning communities and faculty meetings to discussing goal-achieving strategies can provide a power morale boost in schools. In particular, discussing long-term plans can stimulate broad faculty collaboration to shape the school. And sharing with students that you're doing the same thing you ask them to do makes it more likely that they'll value the activity.

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When middle and high school students set short- and long-term goals, they can see a path to the success they hope for.

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Strategies for Supporting Student Goal-Setting

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Strategies for Supporting Student Goal-Setting

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By setting and tracking some learning goals, students can build a growth mindset and practice metacognition.

Westend61 GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo

Student achievement is often defined by predetermined benchmarks, grades, or scores; however, this one-size-fits-all approach doesn't typically acknowledge or account for students' growth.

Taking a differentiated approach to student goal-setting enables learners to redefine success by demonstrating personal progress and taking accountability for their role in the learning process. Incorporating student-created goals into the assessment process promotes intrinsic motivation, purposeful engagement, and high-quality effort from students.

Collecting Baseline Data for Goal-Setting

When determining which data to use for baseline measurements in connection with students' goals, select data points that can be assessed multiple times throughout the year and that align with specific grade-level concepts or skills. This ensures that students' data collection is meaningful and connects with instruction and learning activities.

It's essential that baseline data be charted in a way that is meaningful and comprehensible to students. In my class, each student receives their own data sheet, where they graph their initial data. The sheets include spaces for additional assessments, and by using the same collection sheet throughout the year, students can look at side-by-side comparisons of their performance over time. This format makes learning visible and lends itself to clear conversations about growth, reflection, and areas for continued improvement.

Goal Setting and Progress Monitoring

Once baseline data is collected, I conference with studentsto identify their initial scores, highlight strengths, discuss areas for growth, and set their first incremental goal.

In the goal-setting process, I typically give students a minimum range (e.g., strive to achieve 10 to 15 points above their baseline measurements for their intended goal), particularly students who are performing below grade level and have the most growth to make.

However, I allow students to set higher goals if they choose to. This approach ensures that students are making progress and working toward grade-level standards while keeping their goals realistic. For students who are already performing at or above the grade-level benchmark, goals may include maintaining a specific average, making percentage increases in their results over time, or tracking a new goal or data measurement altogether.

Whether you choose to have your students track their growth biweekly, monthly, quarterly, or per unit, it is essential that they have enough time between measurements to see meaningful growth and change, yet are checking on their progress frequently enough to feel engaged and connected.

Continued Conferencing

During follow-up conferences, students track their next data measurement on their individual graph, compare their scores with their intended goal, and reflect on the assessment. While students are tracking their assessment data, the teacher engages with students in quick (two- or three-minute) discussions about their most recent performance; they identify strengths and struggles, talk about progress made (or the lack thereof), and set the next incremental goal.

The goal-tracking graph sheet serves as an entry point for discussions with students, since the teacher is able to identify whether growth was achieved, scores were stagnant, or scores decreased. The focus of each conference is based on where students fall within this continuum.

For example, if a student made significant growth or reached their goal, that achievement is celebrated, the student reflects and determines what helped them succeed (e.g., effort, focus, learning activities), and they set a new, higher-reaching goal.

If a student's scores remained stagnant or decreased, then the conversation focuses on identifying challenges (e.g., rushed through the assessment) and brainstorming ways to support the student's performance as they work toward the same goal, or a revised goal, before the next checkpoint.

Goal-setting conversations typically take the place of small group instruction, allowing students time to complete independent work when not in their conference.

3-Step Conferencing: Reflect, Track Data, Set Goals

When engaging with students through reflective conferencing, I focus on incorporating three aspects regardless of how students perform on benchmark assessments. First, I probe the student's initial thoughts, such as "How did your assessment go? What went well, or what was challenging? What can you keep doing, or change for next time?"

Next, as students update their data sheet, we talk about their performance, learning process, and areas for adjustment.

Finally, after setting a revised or entirely new goal, I talk with the student about how to prepare for success, whether through independent learning activities, additional small group instruction, access to additional resources/supports, or strategies to support their performance on future assessments (e.g., taking their time, showing their work, going back and rereading, eliminating wrong answers, finding optimal seating to maximize their focus, or asking for clarification).

In my experience, setting goals holds students accountable for their learning; fosters positive perceptions of assessments over time (due to its emphasis on growth over time and its visual representation of student progress throughout the year); and bolsters connections between instruction, guided practice, independent application, and assessment.

Through the use of differentiated goal-setting and data tracking, students authentically engage in the learning process and recognize the purpose and intentions behind learning activities that directly support progress toward their goals. This approach may also instill a growth mindset, providing students with equitable opportunities for success.

By setting goals, tracking individual growth, and celebrating their accomplishments while reflecting on moments of struggle (and engaging in collaborative problem-solving), students practice metacognition, gain self-awareness, and widen their definition of success while learning.

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Strategies for Supporting Student Goal-Setting

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Supporting student goal-setting helps teachers foster a growth mindset and metacognition, and make learning visible across time.