Goal Setting & Monitoring
Overview
Goal-setting and monitoring involves teachers working with students to set individualized academic or behavioral goals, plan actions to achieve those goals, and track progress. Goal-setting and monitoring are key skills to becoming a self-regulated learner. They involve complex metacognitive processes, and therefore should be implemented in a developmentally appropriate way. That is, teachers should introduce and model the process while providing ongoing support and encouragement and, as students build their skills, gradually increase the learners' responsibility for their own goal-setting. As students track their achievements, it enhances Motivation. Goal-setting and self-monitoring are core components of self-determination that have shown a positive impact on the academic achievement of elementary and secondary students with learning disabilities.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch this teacher and student work together to establish personalized reading and math goals.
Design It into Your Product
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Metacognitive Supports Strategies
Creating a culture of error means creating an environment in which errors are valued and encouraged as a necessary part of the learning process, which can help learners to view errors and learn more positively.
Feedback is the process of providing learners with information about their learning to support their progress and improvement, and can come from a range of sources, including teachers and peers.
When students are able to encourage themselves through kind and motivating self-statements, they are practicing positive self-talk.
A rubric is a tool that communicates expectations for success for students to achieve and can include symbols or charts that are easy for students to understand.
