I did goal setting with my third grade students years ago, for the very first time. I remember it was a long term thing, and that the goal was set BY the student, during the first parent conference in November (I did student-led parent conferences in which students, parents, and I looked at student work samples together while the student talked about his/her work). After looking at and discussing the student's work, I would ask the student what they thought they should / could / wanted to work on as a year long goal. Most students came up with something plausible. Some had trouble and in those cases I asked some leading questions and it was fun to listen to the parents follow my lead. We wrote down the goal at the top of a piece of blank white paper and I kept them all until parent conferences were finished. Then, I went through and "categorized" the goals so that there would be groups of three or four students. After a little discussion with some quick modeling, I put the students into groups where they could share their goals (they had their papers with them) and talk about strategies they could use to meet the goals. After these little student group discussions/brainstorm sessions, students wrote down two or three or however many strategies they could use to reach the goal. They kept these papers in their reading/writing notebooks and we visited them every time I met individually with students during reading/writing conference time. Late in the year, probably near the end, they met again in groups and talked about the whole process and wrote a little paragraph about whether they had met their goal, what they had done, what else they could have done, etc. This went into their portfolio of work.
Another year, with fourth and fifth graders, we did weekly goals. I created a reflection sheet (about half-sheet size) that had at the top "Three cheers...." and about halfway down or so, it said ".... and a wish." On Friday afternoon, last thing, students wrote down three things that worked well during the week, and one thing they wish they had done, accomplished, etc. They left these on their desks and on Monday morning, first thing, they flipped it over to the back side, on which they wrote two or three strategies they could use to reach their goal. On Friday afternoon they wrote a quick reflection about whether or not they were progressing toward their goal or had reached it, etc., and why/how/whatever. This was just before filling out a new sheet for the next week. In this fourth/fifth grade class we also did a group reflection at the end of each week, where I used a T-chart with a smiley face on the left and a not-so-smiley face on the right and students volunteered information about things that "helped us learn" and "did not help us learn." On Monday morning we looked at this and chose one thing, as a class, to work on for the week. This was more behavioral than academic (and I will say that this was a very behaviorally challenging class, filled with students with some very major issues and conflicts). What I would do, then, is write a related question on the top of the white board that was used by everyone during the week, i.e., "Are you being polite?" or "Is this helping you get your work done?" or some such prompt. Perhaps these ideas might lead to something for you. :-) I would like to say that I don't think all goals should be "measurable" in a quantifiable sort of way. I think "measurable by reflection" is important as well. A good question to ask, perhaps, would be, "How do you know?" Renee On Jul 17, 2008, at 8:09 AM, Renee Pedersen wrote: > Wow - thank you all very much. > > How do you all run your goal setting lessons? I'm a new teacher > and we > didn't do a great job in student teaching of modeling and > monitoring our > goals in class. The students had goals that were unattainable in > the school > year or ones that weren't really measurable. I want to be sure we > kick this > off right and I know my 3rd graders haven't done anything like this > before, > so we need to start from the basics which is where the intro with > literature > comes in. I really want to focus on setting reading goals and > revisiting > them monthly to see if we need to adapt or modify them in any way > based on > conferencing, etc. > > I know this isn't really 'on topic' with MOT, but I really respect > all of > your opinions and ideas. > > Thanks again, > Renee > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/ > mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." Dorothy Parker _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
