Hello colleagues, We know from research that involving learners in setting personal goals has a positive impact on their persistence. It's important that learners see they are making progress. How do you support learners to set short-term and long-term goals in your program and your classroom? Since tracking those goals is equally important, what processes are you finding effective for revisiting goals?
A recent blog post by Maurice Elias, "A Framework for Student Goal Setting," highlights some tips for effective goal setting. Among Elias's suggestions is using SMART goals and having students talk with one another about their goals.
Thanks for offering your ideas for what works with setting and tracking goals. Questions are welcome, too!
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, Teaching & Learning CoP
Comments
I just do student support and not formal classroom instruction but when I read Lower Ed it made me realize how powerful tapping into student goals can be. The book describes the way schools recruit with dreams and goals beyond "get a certificate." Now when I'm helping a student work through an assignment... I try to tap that, especially if they're frustrated... and work in that yea, this is hard ("if it were easy, anybody could do it") but going to be worth it. When students come in to get our links to preparing for our math and reading assessment, now I engage beyond "here's the links" and do a bit more encouraging and open the conversation to these being steps towards goals and dreams... and it has made a difference. Yes, still a lot of people take the handouts and disappear but not as many, and I think it's because there's more sense that we're not just this institution where you go do what you're told to try to get some reward... but that we care about you and your future...
Thank you, Susan, for sharing your approach to working with learners on their goals, and for linking us to the book Lower Ed and the important work of Tressie McMillan Cottom. Her work is incredibly relevant to our field! I need to get both of her books.
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, Teaching & Learning CoP