RSA2- SMART Goals

RSA2: Teachers Learn to Set Goals with Students: Cooperative Process Brings Wisconsin School to New Heights of Innovation and Success
submitted by: Lisa Kokos

Teachers Learn to Set Goals with Students: Cooperative Process Brings Wisconsin School to New Heights of Innovation and Success

            Setting goals within a Professional Learning Community will help create results and have a positive impact on student learning.  However, these goals cannot be general, they need to be SMART.   This stands for Strategic, Measurable, Attainable, Results oriented, and Time bound.  Goals need to focus on results instead of the activities the teachers will do. According to the book, Learning by Doing, Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, and Thomas Many (2010), “Effective team goals will help answer the question, ‘How will we know if our strategies are resulting in gains in student learning?’ ” (p. 159).  This may be a different way of writing goals for some teachers.  SMART goals are also more effective if they correlate with school and district goals.  Teachers will need to work with their collaborative teams on developing these goals, and they will need time to gather the data to evaluate progress.

            Having teachers write SMART goals is a good plan.  If it works well for teachers, can writing SMART goals be good for students?  This is addressed in the peer reviewed article, Teachers Learn to Set Goals with Students: Cooperative Process Brings Wisconsin School to New Heights of Innovation and Success.(2004)  Administrators and teachers saw setting SMART goals was helping, but they wanted to have more student involvement with the process.  “The group became convinced that increasing students’ responsibility using the goal setting process … would empower students and raise achievement.” (p. 34).  After four years of this process, goal setting is a part of the school culture.  The school also saw increased achievement by minority and special education students. If the school fell short of reaching a goal, they would take a look at the goal again and determine what needed to be done differently to help the students achieve these goals.  This becomes an evolving cycle over the years.

            Both the textbook and article agree that SMART goal setting is effective for increasing students achievement.  However, the article goes on to show that it is just as effective having students participate in their own goal setting.  In the past, I have had students write goals, but never at this level.  Having teacher buy-in is essential for PLC’s to develop team SMART goals.  Teams need to be able to go back and evaluate results to determine what worked and what needs to be changed.  If students are empowered to track their own progress, to read and record their data, they will also have more accountability for their achievement.  Teachers and students working together can be very powerful.

References

DuFour, D., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010). Learning by doing: A handbook for professional learning communities at work. (2nd ed.). Bloomington: Solution Tree Press.

O’Neill, J. (2004). Teachers Learn to Set Goals with Students: Cooperative Process Brings Wisconsin School to New Heights of Innovation and Success. Journal of Staff Development, 25(3), 32-37.