As I’ve indicated in my other posts, I am a huge proponent of providing different avenues for students to be able to take charge of their own learning. In order for students to really “buy in” to what they are learning; we have to make it applicable to them. What better way to apply knowledge to themselves than set learning goals, taking into account prior knowledge, what the student wants to learn and where what we need the students to learn. Learning goals can be set at the onset of a class for long-term goals, and small unit based short-term goals. I feel one of the first steps to making content applicable to students and setting up learning goals is making sure that we are not just reteaching material that they already know. We can assess this through KWL’s, pre-tests and parking lots. I call it a ‘parking lot’ because I don’t really know another name for it, but this would be when you ask students to get out of their seat and stand on a specific side of the classroom to indicate their answer to a question posed by the teacher. The quickest way to lose a student’s interest is to try and reteach them something that they already know. Obviously, we have standards that we must teach, but imagine how much we could cover if we just asked students what they already know, or in educational terms “assessed prior knowledge.”
I would see this all the time when I started the soils unit in my crops class and students would say, “we already learned this in Earth Science!” This is when I would take the opportunity to explain that they may have learned it, but have they seen it practically or in a textbook. Have they seen the layers of soil? Have they learned that different layers offer different properties for life? Do they know that different nutrients are required for different crops? Furthermore, it’s crucial to include hands-on activities to engage students as well. When students are moving and creating, they are learning. With that, students desire to see the practicality of what they are learning. This means they need to be able to choose how they are assessed, and the content covered.
Every year, we have a significant shuffle of schedules to ensure students are in the class they signed up for. Students would tell the counselor to put them in an agriculture class, they didn’t care which one, they just wanted an agriculture class. They would then get put into a crop science class but find more interest in a mechanics class and ask for a switch. For this reason, I always spend the first week teaching goal-setting because it’s a skill that can be utilized in any class and any setting in school or life. Students would get a quick history lesson of the Great John Wooden and how important goal setting is through his goal pyramid. We would then go through how to set SMART goals and set one for success in the class as well as for the entire year. Students would create a modified goal pyramid and would hang it above their seats so they could have a visual daily reminder of why they are there. It was truly powerful and when they felt like getting off task, I could ask them to check their pyramid of success.
It would often curb effort, attitude and discipline issues before they got bad. Throughout the semester, it’s fairly straight forward for students to be able to set their own educational goals because they have already mastered the hardest part: setting goals and making them specific. It’s kind of funny as I took my five-day lesson in OTL502 and based it off goal setting in athletics for my new job (I would love to share it with anyone if they would like to have it as a resource). Oftentimes, as educators, we have to scaffold or differentiate for every class because of the differing levels of our students, having students create their own goals allows them to take a couple steps out of your differentiating because they have already determined what they need to do in order to master the content. It also encourages them to push themselves when you aren’t always sitting next to them to instruct them what to do next. It has been said that goal setting motivates students to take charge of their own learning and promotes self-efficacy (Lbogle, 2019). Spending time in the classroom teaches you quickly that students who struggle with emotional or behavioral disorders often struggle to be self-motivated learners (Bruhn, Mcdaniel, Fernando, & Troughton, n.d.) There is a certain type of student that I have in mind when I think of this topic, I’m sure we have all either taught this student or been in a class with this student, but it’s the disengaged, highly intelligent student. The student that we would classify as “too smart for their own good.” A teacher, through the use of student learning goals, can harness those students and use their personal learning goals to push them beyond expectations. When we take the information from pre-assessments, we help students create goals that are achievable, obtainable and challenging for the student, as an individual (Romano, Papa, & Saulle, n.d.)
References:
Bruhn, A., Mcdaniel, S., Fernando, J., & Troughton, L. (n.d.). Goal-Setting Interventions for Students with Behavior Problems: A Systematic Review - Allison L. Bruhn, Sara C. Mcdaniel, Josephine Fernando, Leonard Troughton, 2016. Retrieved June 02, 2020, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.17988/0198-7429-41.2.107
Lbogle. (2019, October 21). Student Goal Setting: An Evidence-Based Practice. Retrieved June 02, 2020, from https://www.air.org/resource/student-goal-setting-evidence-based-practice
Romano, L., Papa, L., & Saulle, E. (n.d.). How to help students set and reach their goals. Retrieved from http://www.teachhub.com/how-help-students-set-and-reach-their-goals
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