We are so excited to be writing this post to share with all of you! Today we wanted to share something we have our students do: create learning goals. As teachers we have our teaching goals and objectives which are critical because these give us the direction we need to go. Without them we would not be very effective teachers. But what about our students? Do they know where they need to go? They may know because we tell them and we share our objectives with them, but do they have ownership in that? Is telling them enough to motivate them to expect more of themselves and to strive for the goals we create for them? Probably not.
As teachers, we know the best instructional strategies involve the students being active participants. The "sit-and-get" just doesn't cut it anymore. The passing of information from teacher to student isn't engaging to students. Some of them will learn the material, others will not. We want all our students to be successful. Sharing our essential questions and objectives with students is important, don't get us wrong. It lets them know what they can plan on learning for that day, week, or unit of study. But if we want students to truly take responsibility for their performance, for their learning, we have to let them be active participants. When students are active in their learning, they take pride in it, and they have a sense of accomplishment. What better way to do this than to help them create learning goals for themselves?
Students tend to be their own worst critic, so getting them active in creating goals for themselves will motivate them to do the very best they can. It also helps them pinpoint areas of weakness that they need to improve. Sure, we can tell them they need to work on 'XY and Z', but sometimes that is in one ear and out the other! It's kind of like when you let students "help" make their classroom rules...you know what you want the rules to be, so when needed, you gently nudge them in that direction. But most often, what happens? They end up making rules that you wanted, and, I know for me, sometimes they would come up with rules I hadn't even thought about! The point is, when you allow students to have some authority, they will often do so at the level you expected, and sometimes rise above it.
Learning goals aren't easy for students to create, which is why when we first begin, we create class learning goals. We share our essential questions and objectives, and model how to create goals. We use the gradual release model of lessening our support. Next we let them lead in creating class goals, then we shift to having them create their own individual goals. Our students love checking their progress with their goals. It keeps them motivated to continue working, even if something is difficult for them because they don't want to fail.
There are a couple of different ways we keep these learning goals organized. I teach a variety of grades during the day, so I color code each segment. Each class has a their own color for their essential questions (in pocket charts) and learning goal poster (on the white board). This keeps me from having to put one up, take it down, put the next one up, take the next one down. Instead of seeing all white posters on the board, they can go straight to their color. I could hang them on the wall, but then they would take up space, and our fire marshall counts hanging posters on our white board as part of the 50% wall covering rule, so when he is in the building I can take them down easily since all it takes are some magnets!
 |
| Color coded learning goal posters |
When we have our students create their individual learning goals, we want them in an easy to access place for both our students and ourselves. Apple #1 divides her closet door into 3 sections (she teaches 3rd grade ELA so she has 3 blocks of students). Her students write their individual goals on index cards and then sticks them onto the appropriate section.
 |
| Examples of student created learning goals |
 |
| Examples of student created learning goals |
But having students write these goals is not enough. They need to regularly assess their work to see if they are moving closer to reaching their goal. When she has her students edit (either by themselves or with a buddy), she has them take their learning goal with them. What a great focus for the students! Instead of trying to critique every aspect of their writing, they can focus on 1-2 things...which is what we do as teachers when we grade their writing.
Learning goals can be created for any content area. We have found them to be very powerful tools in getting students to take responsibility for their learning and crank up their motivation. It gives them a purpose for learning, and gives them something to aim for. We hope that you will give them a try!
For our next post, we will share some of our ideas for implementing Close Reads with your kiddos. We have fallen in love with them, and we have already seen improvement in our students' deeper level comprehension skills.
Until next time!
2 Brainy Apples
Stop by and see us at:
Follow us on Twitter @2brainyapples
0 comments:
Post a Comment