At the beginning of the year I always do a goal setting
activity with my students and we talk about the importance of having both short
and long term goals. We write our goals on the first page of our interactive
journals. And to show how important goals are, I set goals for myself right
along with them. Periodically throughout the year (usually around progress
report time) we review our progress and discuss our goals. We ask challenging
questions of each other about why are goals are and are not working. By the end
of the year most students have started to internalize that commitment is the
key to having goals happen and ultimately having their dreams take shape in
their lives. If you have not read the article What
It Takes To Be Great by Geoff Colvin, it’s worth the read with your
students. It reinforces that success comes at the high price of hard work.
Next year I am thinking about extending this activity by
adding dream boards to help visualize what we desire to accomplish. Dream boards are
simple to make and can be done the old fashioned way by finding pictures in
magazines and pasting them on a board. Or they may be done digitally on
programs like Power Point or Kidspiration and printed out for show.
DREAMBOARD
At the end of the year it’s always a good idea to remind
student’s that summer is time for having fun, but that doesn’t mean that goals
take a break until school starts in the Fall. I like to take a day and end our
interactive journals where we began with a final goal setting activity and have students set short term goals for the
summer. If they have BIG goals like being a famous soccer star, they can
write what they are committed to for the summer months to keep them on track.
If nothing too serious swims in their school weary brains, have them set
smaller goals. I encourage them to set 5
goals and to try to capture at least three different domains – Physical Activity/Health, Community
Service, Home and Family Relationships, Self Improvement, Spirituality
(whatever that is for your students), Career, Financial/Economic, Leisure.
Of course you can feel free to adjust the domains as works best for your
students.
And once again, I set goals right alongside them. Here are
the goals I’m setting for the Summer
2014. I feeling ambitious this summer and set 10 goals – mostly stuff I’ve been putting off all year and can
hardly wait to get started on them. The other thing about goal setting that I did not mention earlier is that successful people share their goals with others who will support them towards success. It's one thing to know your own goals, and if you give up know one knows but you. It's quite another to declare the goals or post them where everyone can see them. It lets other people know what you are up to. For those kids who are not particularly intrinsically motivated but are competitive or need approval and acceptance from their peer group, this can be the difference between success and failure. It's peer pressure used in a positive way.
To that end, I am posting mine here for you all to see. I will keep you posted on progress this Summer. I will also be showing this to my students in the Fall as part of my lesson with my new class. It will serve as a conversation starter about what we did over the summer. This adds just a little extra value to the project and let's me double dip on a lesson. Ummm... double dip....
And as a final thought, as I was setting these goals I
remembered another goal that has been on my plate for ages, but never acted
upon. While I don’t really feel up to doing it this Summer, I will certainly
put it on the top of my list in the Fall when I set goals with the class. What’s
that goal, you ask? Well, it’s really about time that I write a 10 day set of Emergency
Sub Plans and have them ready to go! And that will be my starting point with my kids next year!!
I look forward to hearing your goals for the summer and how you
use goal setting with your students.
