Setting Goals with +Arianne Jones
Most “impossible” goals can be met simply by writing them down,
believing in them, and then going full speed ahead as if they were routine.
- by Don
Lancaster
Goal
setting is easy for teachers but difficult for eight year olds. Teachers want their students to be
successful: therefore, they have many goals in mind for each student in their
class. The truth is, these goals have little meaning unless students understand
them and make them their own.
Our athlete
mentor, Arianne Jones, challenged the students in our class to select a
personal goal and a class goal, to work on, throughout her year of mentorship. This is a great activity for the starting our
year together in grade three. As a
teacher, my classroom goal focuses on building a classroom community that
encourages students to work together to help each other. Understanding student interests provides me
with necessary information for layering in lessons that promote a sense of
belonging.
The
students were excited to hear from their mentor. They sat upright, focusing on
her message and marvelling that they were listening to a lesson, from an Olympic
athlete, designed for them. Such
wonderful engagement!
Once again,
my appreciation for “Classroom Champions” grew enormously. I felt so grateful
for Arianne’s mentorship. I have mentored a few beginning teachers throughout
my career and I understand how much time and effort is involved the mentoring process.
I appreciate that an Olympic athlete would share her precious time, with my
students, to encourage their success.
In the
discussion that followed, most students understood how long term and short term
goals were different yet supported each other.
A few students needed help to select short term goals that matched their
long term goal. In one case the student
could not differentiate long term from short term goals, despite lengthy
discussion. This was a good insight for
me because it confirmed my guess that his home environment doesn’t support this
type of conversation. I knew I had my
work cut out for me!
Here is one example of Student Goals More to follow as they are completed.
At this
point, conversation switched to classroom goals. The class quickly decided they wanted to
improve their reading skills. Each
student agreed to work hard to move up three reading levels by the end of the school
year. Unfortunately, when asked to
select short term goals, they could only identify “practice reading for 20
minutes each night” as a strategy to improve.
Perfect! What a great opportunity for me to layer in
lessons about reading with good accuracy, fluency and comprehension. I know how critical it is to look at student
background knowledge before building lessons.
It looks like I have started with a blank slate! Suffice it to say, we will be learning a lot
about what it takes to read proficiently as the year progresses. We
will be busy identifying efficient strategies and using daily practice to
improve our reading skills. You will see
below that this goal will fit in very nicely with the grade three Alberta Language
Arts Curriculum. It is a happy fit for
the year.
Before I
sign off, let me emphasize that mentors have significant, powerful, positive
impact. Mentors provide direction. Our
goal setting will influence choices we make for life-long learning. It will
direct our daily choices and with reflection throughout the year, students will
learn to make necessary changes as they fulfill or alter their goals. Arianne’s challenge will set many big dreams
in motion and direct the students in my class to make powerful, positive life
choices.
Who aims at excellence will be above mediocrity, who
aims at mediocrity will fall short of it.
-
Burmese saying
Curriculum links:
Alberta
Health Curriculum:
Students will use resources effectively to manage and explore life roles and career opportunities and challenges.
L-3.4 identify the steps of the goal-setting process, and apply
these components to short-term personal goals
Alberta
Language Arts Curriculum:
General Outcome 1 (Gr. 3)
Students
will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to explore thoughts, ideas, feelings and experiences.
1.1
Discover and Explore
Express ideas and develop understanding
• connect prior knowledge and
personal experiences with new ideas and information in oral, print and other
media texts
• explain understanding of new concepts in own
words
• explore ideas and feelings by asking questions,
talking to others and referring to oral, print and other media texts
Experiment with language and forms
• choose appropriate forms of oral, print and
other media texts for communicating and sharing ideas with others
Express preferences
• choose and share a variety of oral, print and
other media texts in areas of particular interest
Set goals
• discuss areas of personal accomplishment as
readers, writers and illustrators
General Outcome 2 (Gr. 3)
Students
will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to comprehend and respond personally and critically to oral, print
and other media texts.
2.1
Use Strategies and Cues
Use prior knowledge
• share ideas developed through interests, experiences and
discussion that are related to new ideas and information
• identify the different ways
in which oral, print and other media texts, such as stories, textbooks,
letters, pictionaries and junior dictionaries, are organized, and use them to
construct and confirm meaning
Use comprehension strategies
• use grammatical knowledge
to predict words and sentence structures when reading narrative and expository
materials
• apply a variety of
strategies, such as setting a purpose, confirming predictions, making
inferences and drawing conclusions
• identify the main idea or
topic and supporting details in simple narrative and expository passages
• extend sight vocabulary to
include predictable phrases and words related to language use
• read silently with
increasing confidence and accuracy
• monitor and confirm meaning
by rereading when necessary, and by applying knowledge of pragmatic, semantic,
syntactic and graphophonic cueing systems
Use textual cues
• use headings, paragraphs,
punctuation and quotation marks to assist with constructing and confirming
meaning
• attend to and use knowledge
of capitalization, commas in a series, question marks, exclamation marks and
quotation marks to read accurately, fluently and with comprehension during oral
and silent reading
Use phonics and structural analysis
• apply phonic rules and
generalizations competently and confidently to read unfamiliar words in context
• apply word analysis
strategies to segment words into parts or syllables, when reading unfamiliar
words in context
• associate sounds with an
increasing number of vowel combinations, consonant blends and digraphs, and
letter clusters to read unfamiliar words in context
Use references
• put words in alphabetical
order by first and second letter
• use pictionaries, junior
dictionaries and spell-check functions to confirm the spellings or locate the
meanings of unfamiliar words in oral, print and other media texts
General Outcome 4 (Gr. 3)
Students
will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to enhance the clarity and artistry of communication.
4.3
Present and Share
Present information
• present ideas and information on a topic, using a pre-established
plan
Enhance presentation
•use print and non-print
aids to illustrate ideas and information in oral, print and other media texts
Use effective oral and visual communication
• speak or present oral
readings with fluency, rhythm, pace, and with appropriate intonation to
emphasize key ideas
Demonstrate attentive listening and viewing
• rephrase, restate and
explain the meaning of oral and visual presentations
• identify and set purposes
for listening and viewing
