Give a child a fish, and you feed them for a day. Teach a child to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime. Adapted from Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie’s novel Mrs Dymond, this adage rings true when developing students’ goal-setting skills.
It’s possible there’s not an educator in the country who hasn’t asked students to set goals or who sets goals for students in some capacity – a lesson intention or an Individual Education Plan (IEP) goal, for example. There lies an intrinsic understanding that goal-setting supports achievement. However, when a teacher creates a goal for a student, it is akin to giving a student a fish. It denies the student the opportunity to develop goal-setting skills and strategies that they can develop and use throughout their lives. But for many students, articulating meaningful goals that lead to achievement is very challenging, especially when the student has difficulties with their executive function. So, how do educators develop goal-setting skills in students?
CAST’s Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework recommends processes for students to set personal goals that are simultaneously challenging and achievable.
Teach a Child to Fish – Scaffold it, model it, guide it and mirror it!
Scaffold the goal-defining process. The well-known SMART goal acronym serves as a simple scaffold to plan goals. In addition to the goal itself, guide students to estimate the effort inherent in achieving the goal. Consider the resources required and the accessibility of these resources. Additionally, encourage students to assess the difficulty of the goal – is it challenging enough to move them forward and gain a sense of fulfilment from its achievement? Is it attainable, given appropriate effort and resourcing?
Throughout the goal creation process, model writing or otherwise documenting task-focused goals. These are goals that have an intrinsic focus on learning and improving, as opposed to rating performance or competing against others. Provide concrete examples of not only the product of achieving the goal but also the goal-setting process.
Support students with organisation tools, such as guides and checklists for tracking not only the construction of their goals but also to schedule and monitor progress.
Highlight the goals. Make them obvious and valued. Post the goals and goal-tracking schedules around the learning space. Reference them regularly and provide explicit feedback on the process of goal attainment.
Many more practical, easy-to-implement strategies for supporting executive function and accessing the curriculum are suggested in the Universal Design for Learning section of this website or in the CAST UDL framework.
See previous posts from Lizzie’s UDL File.