Skip to main content

Goal Setting with Students



Our students go back to school from the holiday break this Monday (January 7th). I suspect that most teachers talk about setting goals throughout the year (MAP goals, reading goals, etc.) but coming back in the New Year is a great time to reiterate the importance of goal setting and talk about why we should do it. Teaching students now how to set goals helps them to develop a growth mindset and gives them skills they will need as they get jobs later in life. 

For myself setting goals (big and small) helps me to stay focused as well as encourages continued learning. I can't image having a day, month, or year without some goals list! Some of my goals are annoying...like organize my closets and drawers and others are fun like try and match one pinned outfit a month.

January's Pinned Outfit Match Goal Achieved

When I was younger I made it a goal to be able to do a handstand. I practiced outside for HOURS until I could do it. My son wanted to learn a flip skateboard trick and I watched as he spent an entire holiday break with his friends in the driveway trying to nail it (and watching YouTube videos that helped him learn it).

I recently read this article on We Are Teachers about goal setting with students and loved some of the ideas. My favorite is having students complete "WOW" goals (goals that can be done "within one week"). Students need to understand that small goals can add up to complete a big goal (and to be realistic most children need immediate gratification and success in order to see goal setting is worth it).

The article mentions some books that would be good for students in relation to goal setting but I also put together a list of videos that could be used as well. They aren't necessary about setting goals but rather kids who had to set goals in order to achieve what they wanted. 

Achievement - https://www.passiton.com/inspirational-sto…/148-hall-of-fame
Mo’s Bows - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzoGIR2RCrM
Ballet - https://www.passiton.com/inspirational-stories-t…/152-ballet
Rube Goldberg – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMboI4cOAuQ&t=108s
Double Dutch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhhAkXF0aXM
Darci Lynn Ventriloquist - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk_qLtk0m2c
Singing - https://www.passiton.com/inspirational…/154-grace-vanderwaal


You can show a few of the videos and have student pair up and come up with a personal goal they would like to achieve...complete a handstand, get to the next level of a video game, learn how to draw a horse. Keep it away from school goals to begin with...that wouldn't be nearly as fun to discuss.

Give students this Newsela article Celebrating Kids Who Did Amazing Things in 2018 and have them pick one of the children and have them make a list of three goals that child probably had to set in order to reach their BIG goal. The article can be accessed with a free account. They also offer another article about Setting Goals, and Keeping them, for the New Year .

Then have students come up with three goals: one personal, one home, and one school and have them list the small goals they need to achieve them.

I liked these goal displays I came across on Pinterest. I always feel that if a goal is "public" you are more likely to complete it.

Blog Post


Blog Link

Blog Post - Reading Goals

If you have any other great videos, books, or ideas for goal setting please share them in the comments section or share on Twitter tagging @atechcoachlife.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Activity

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock&

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

Rock Cycle Activity

Today I got to spend the day with a 3rd grade science teacher doing a rock cycle activity. She had asked for help a couple of weekends ago to find some engaging rock cycle activities for her students. I quickly did a Pinterest search and came up with a link to a middle school blog where they featured a fun looking rock cycle station activity. That website took me to the originating activity site - Illinois State Museum Geology Online and their Ride the Rock Cycle activity . I read through it and felt it was doable for third graders (although I was a little nervous about the cartooning). I offered my help and we put together the activity. The kids did it WONDERFULLY. It was one of those lesson you wish was observed (but of course never is :) They are on an alternating science schedule so she only had two of the four classes today but it was a good sampling of children. She had one class that had a high portion of struggling learners and the second class had a high