I hope everyone had a successful adjustment back to school after the winter holidays. The new year is the perfect time to reflect on our goals. When I was thinking about student goals, I decided to revamp several aspects of our goal tracking system. Today, I would like to share the new way my students will be tracking their goals.
We started off with the purpose of goal setting – create goals that improve yourself as a person and/or help others. If you need a resource for this, Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution is a great one. If you don’t have access to the book, you can use the video on YouTube.
After defining a goal, we brainstormed several specific ideas such as learning all of your addition and subtraction facts by the end of February or learning the rest of your individual sight words by the end of January.
After students came up with their goals, they recorded them on this sheet.
The first goal doesn’t have a check-in, so I made an adjustment on a second sheet. That way, students can monitor their goals each week after writing their initial goal. Because the goals vary in length, I made the form an adjustable check-in that would work for all students.
I do believe in public displays where students can show their progress. However, I don’t believe in publicly posting individual scores because everyone had different strengths and weaknesses. I don’t think anyone’s weakness should be displayed. Having said that, I created these posters to display.
I hole punched the posters and connected them with rings. Students now use this as a clip chart. All students start with their numbered clip (clothespin) on “I just started a new goal.” Here is a picture of everything together.
Each week, students will record their progress on the goal sheet and move their clips accordingly. I set my own goal so I can monitor my progress with the students. Once they accomplish their goals, they start their clip over on the bottom. Students are allowed to start over at other times if they feel their goal is no longer appropriate or a priority, but they need to discuss it with me first.
If you are interested in the goal tracking sheets, you can download them here.
The goal tracking posters are here.
I hope everyone (students and teachers) are able to meet their goals in 2017, regardless of what system you use. Good luck!
Thank you!
