Goal Setting

Overview

Setting overall goals, as well as smaller goals as steps to reaching them, encourages consistent, achievable progress and helps students feel confident in their skills and abilities. When learners create their own goals, plan out steps to achieve them, and check their progress against these steps, they strengthen their self-efficacy as they build their capacity to tackle difficult challenges and be successful.

Use It in the Classroom

Watch this fifth grade teacher use SMART goals with her students. By sharing examples of her students' goals, this teacher provides a concrete overview of what makes up a SMART goal. Through this process, students are able to reflect on their learning and goals, maintaining them in their Short-term Memory.

Teachers can support students by helping them create goals for future learning based on what they do well, what they are excited to learn, and their target areas, then help them monitor their progress towards these goals. Learners feel more Motivation to tackle challenging math problems with the support of goals and micro-goals. For example, setting a goal of counting 10 higher each week can help a student feel confident that they can work with bigger numbers.

Design It into Your Product

For a developer, incorporating milestones or goals that are realistic and pertinent can be highly motivating for learners. For their work to be relevant, learners must also have the opportunity and agency to set at least some of the goals personally. A potential framework to follow for giving learners this agency in setting meaningful, attainable goals for learners is WOOP: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, and Plan.

View References

Resources

Below are additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.

Examples

Blog Post on SMART Goals

Tools and resources for implementing another goal-setting framework: **S**pecific, **M**easurable, **A**chievable, **R**esults-Based, and **T**ime-Bound

Examples

Character Lab- WOOP

More information about WOOP including tools and resources for implementation.

Examples

SMART Goal Module

An in depth explanation of SMART goals

Examples

Feedback & Peer Assessment

Subtopic that explores research on the effects of quality, type, and source of feedback on student learning on Digital Promise's Research Map

Examples

Metacognition & Self-Regulated Learning

Subtopic that includes research on metacognitive processes that help learners plan what and how to learn on Digital Promise's Research Map