While I was in the midst of sharing my dog training goal with my 7th graders, I had a mini-epiphany! Although my goal was a good starting point for my 7th graders considering it was similar to where they would start, yet it was definitely not a learning goal. Nevertheless, it can be used as we strive to create learning goals. If I start with this goal, we can use it to tease out more specific learning goals. Since we’re working on our goal setting toward the end of the week--there is s time to play with that idea!
My eighth grade students had experienced and practiced the procedure of writing SMART goals last year. Furthermore, they were familiar with goal evaluations, and adjustments, and remembered celebrating successes and rebounding …show more content…
(Ss) How about...Three times a week, practice putting on your coat. Don’t let him jump, reward with treats.
Their finished product looked like this:
By December 10th, my dog will not jump when I come in the door and will not jump when I put my coat on.
Before walking in the house, be ready to block his jump; only talk to the dog when he is not jumping.
If the dog doesn’t jump, pet him and talk to him.
Three times a week, practice putting on your coat. Don’t let the dog jump, and if he doesn’t give him treats.
The students created fabulous learning goals for me; now they needed to be self reflective and create their own learning goal. However, hearing the direction to start, they froze; they had the deer-in-the-headlights look. Next they threw in the towel and the whining started--I don’t know what to do. How do I do that? You can’t do that with math. They were stumped.
Realizing this needed some structure, we worked as a group. Since we were a few days into chapter 4 (CC3) each student would write a learning goal for chapter 4. Knowing they didn’t have the connections between a rule, a pattern, a graph and an equation, provided the starting point of writing a learning goal. I had them select the relationship that confused them most, and wrote a learning goal to improve that understanding. Considering this was not a quarter goal, but more of a chapter goal, they used the format, by the end of Chapter …show more content…
be able to create a rule from tile patterns. be able to create a graph from tile patterns. be able to create a graph from a rule. Etc
Some examples of their action plans were: work with my team and ask more questions to understand the relationship, ask for more problems that practice the connection I’m trying to make, to do more math-talking in my group, to try to explain this connection to my team.
Given the fact it was a chapter goal; students evaluated every few days. I modeled the process, I sharing my successes and failures with my dog training learning goals. Successes were celebrated and they told me to keep working on the no-jumping goal. Next they self-evaluated and shared with their team. These are some of the comments I overheard: I’m working a little harder to see the connection, I’m not doing any better so maybe I need to follow my action steps and do more math talking, I need to get it together more as I don’t want to let this goal slide. From these comments it seemed like students had a heightened sense of responsibility and commitment. I hoped it would be evident on the
My eighth grade students had experienced and practiced the procedure of writing SMART goals last year. Furthermore, they were familiar with goal evaluations, and adjustments, and remembered celebrating successes and rebounding …show more content…
(Ss) How about...Three times a week, practice putting on your coat. Don’t let him jump, reward with treats.
Their finished product looked like this:
By December 10th, my dog will not jump when I come in the door and will not jump when I put my coat on.
Before walking in the house, be ready to block his jump; only talk to the dog when he is not jumping.
If the dog doesn’t jump, pet him and talk to him.
Three times a week, practice putting on your coat. Don’t let the dog jump, and if he doesn’t give him treats.
The students created fabulous learning goals for me; now they needed to be self reflective and create their own learning goal. However, hearing the direction to start, they froze; they had the deer-in-the-headlights look. Next they threw in the towel and the whining started--I don’t know what to do. How do I do that? You can’t do that with math. They were stumped.
Realizing this needed some structure, we worked as a group. Since we were a few days into chapter 4 (CC3) each student would write a learning goal for chapter 4. Knowing they didn’t have the connections between a rule, a pattern, a graph and an equation, provided the starting point of writing a learning goal. I had them select the relationship that confused them most, and wrote a learning goal to improve that understanding. Considering this was not a quarter goal, but more of a chapter goal, they used the format, by the end of Chapter …show more content…
be able to create a rule from tile patterns. be able to create a graph from tile patterns. be able to create a graph from a rule. Etc
Some examples of their action plans were: work with my team and ask more questions to understand the relationship, ask for more problems that practice the connection I’m trying to make, to do more math-talking in my group, to try to explain this connection to my team.
Given the fact it was a chapter goal; students evaluated every few days. I modeled the process, I sharing my successes and failures with my dog training learning goals. Successes were celebrated and they told me to keep working on the no-jumping goal. Next they self-evaluated and shared with their team. These are some of the comments I overheard: I’m working a little harder to see the connection, I’m not doing any better so maybe I need to follow my action steps and do more math talking, I need to get it together more as I don’t want to let this goal slide. From these comments it seemed like students had a heightened sense of responsibility and commitment. I hoped it would be evident on the