Resources: Goal Setting

Goal Setting

This video lesson may contain several big points:

1. The definition of a goal
2. Why goal setting skills are important
3. The types of goals (long or short term, personal or academic, etc.)
4. How the student athlete sets goals in his or her own life
5. The importance of telling others about your goals
6. A challenge to students to set their own long term and short term goals, and to share them with each other, their families, you, and your mentor.

You may want to prepare for watching the video lesson by:

1. Planning for vocabulary development as needed
2. Choosing an anchor text about goal setting
3. Thinking over what sort of anchor chart or graphic organizer you will want to use
4. Preparing a place in your classroom to display student goals throughout the year, or to help students record their progress over the year.

Monthly Summaries due by January 30. 

We'll start with preparing for the video lesson. I'm sharing lots of information that might be helpful. Please pick and chose what makes sense to you.

Vocabulary Development

• Create a working definition of "Goal." Your student athlete's video have some really good ideas on this, and it might even be worth watching just the first minute of other athlete's videos to see different people's takes on this topic.
• Aspects of goal setting to take into account when creating a definition might be:
• specific
• measurable
• time related
• something the person wants to do (personal investment)
• can be broken down into steps
• with support, it is something a person could really make happen
• Students could practice this sort of vocabulary and try out talking about the topic by interviewing each other, as outlined in this Edutopia article.

Anchor texts for Goal Setting

The best way to learn about setting and accomplishing goals is to analyze the methods of people who have successfully done that. Biographical texts of innovators and accomplished people are going to lay out the process in an easily understood way. Finding a biography of someone relevant to another subject area you are working on this month is a great way to integrate College Champions topics into your core curriculum. 

Here are some favorites, appropriate for most grade levels. The links are to Amazon because those listings contain the information that you need to order the book from the library.

Salt in his Shoes, Michael Jordan's life story. See also Dream Big 

Wilma Unlimited, about the world's fastest woman

Fly High: The story of Bessie Coleman, aviation pioneer

Mr. Ferris and his Wheel, engineering innovator

Want more? A roundup of biographies by Goodreads, Barnes and Nobel (including some graphic novels and books for older students), and Powell's Books (mostly middle readers).

For middle school students, I am also a big fan of the narrative nonfiction profiling innovators and dreamers in magazines like National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Wired, and Fast Company.

These fictional accounts are also a good read about specific parts of the topic this month.

Rosie Revere, Engineer -- finding a good support team for your dreams

The Perfect Percival Priggs -- finding your own passion, not the thing others might chose for you.

Need a video?

This four-minute animated TedEd video by Steve talks about decision making, consistency, and sometimes adjusting the plan on the way to a goal.

Anchor charts, graphic organizers, and displaying goals

The very best examples of this are the ones created by other teachers, and I have put a few here. They used everything from goals written on clouds, to mini me drawings on paths and tracks and roads, to dreamcatchers, banners, sentence strips, and photos of students holding signs.

Consider:

1. Sharing your own goal, and modeling the decision making and documenting involved.
2. Setting a class goal so everyone can work together toward something.
3. Individual goals
4. Display the goals in the classroom. Teachers displayed goals on walls, classroom doors, ceilings, taped to desks, and inside of personal journals.
5. Send a copy of the goals home with the family newsletter so families can be involved in the conversation.

The target chart (pictured) and a pyramid (first introduced in this classic video lesson) have both been effective graphic organizers over the years.

This blogger uses a hand as a graphic organizer.

A few interesting resources for you as a learner

NPR recently reported on a research project in participated in writing exercises around goal setting erased the gender and race gap among 700 students. (Thank you teacher Janet Ilko for this link)

A TED playlist of goal setting and decision making talks, including one of my favorite TED talks ever: Diana Nyad and her swim from Cuba to the US at age 64.

How goal setting -- and running -- help the homeless, from All Things Considered.

Ten Tips for Setting Successful Goals with Students from Education Week.

-Heatherle