Next Steps
Questions Driving Phase 2 Next Steps
After reviewing my findings from phase one I wanted to do a lot of introspection to decide what I really want to do with my phase two. These are some of the questions I thought about to help continue my path in discovering- what happens when I work with students to set individual goals?
- Would having the students’ goals up on a poster with their number help them remember?
- Would dedicating more time to discussing, reviewing and working on goals help them?
- Should I have an incentive for accomplishing their goals?
- Do my students honestly care about their goal setting?
- Are they aware of their behaviors throughout the day that work toward and against their goals?
- Should I have goal checks throughout the day?
- Would making goal time frame shorter help with students?
- Should I have students review goals in the morning and at the end of the day?
- Would setting and review a class goal help students become aware of goal setting?
- Would this help them be more self aware if they knew other people were relying on them to accomplish the class goal?
- Would it work better if I did a system where instead of tracking everything they do just give a tally for the whole activity? IE list our schedule for the day and after each one, they come up to me to get a check or not. I think this would be most effective but I don’t know if it is realistic.
- What can I do to assist students more aware of the decisions they are making?
Phase 2 Action Plan
I am going to have students pick their own goals. This is a huge switch from phase one where I set the goals for them. I believe that if students have more ownership and connection to their goal they may remember it more and care more about it. This also goes back to my intention of teaching students self-awareness. I want students to see if the goal they pick for themselves worked and really fit what they needed to work on. When reviewing these goals I will ask students, “did you find this goal too easy, to hard or just right? Was this goal something you could work on in class?” based on these questions I will have them pick another goal. Hopefully each time they pick their own goal then act and reflect they will get closer to picking goals that are fitting for them.
The first step for phase two is to work with students on better understanding goals. When we come back on Monday from thanksgiving break, I am going to do an interactive power point that gets students interested in talking about goals. I want students to think about what types of goals they can set, how these goals affect the classroom community, and why we are setting goals. After we think about all of these things I want to ask students what goals they think we could work on as a class or what they individually could work on to help the class. From there we will talk about the specific actions they can take to make these goals work. After that I will put up the list of goals they think thought of that they can work on to contribute to the classroom community.
I will have each student write what goal they think they should work on, to give them ownership of over their goals. This will also allow me to see if the goals they choose fit things they should actually work on. I want to talk with a few students and figure out why they chose that goal and get a reading on how self-aware the students are.
From there I will decided if I want to set goals as a whole class or continue with individual goals. I know that no matter if I choose to have students set individual goals or one goal as a class, that I will have the whole class practice short-term goal setting. On day two I will discuss with students the types of goals we can set and then have the class vote on a goal by having a class on the second day
If I do continue with individual goals I will have all students set goals. This way I can have everyone check his or her goals right after a lesson or at the end of the day. It fits better into the schedule to have everyone do an activity rather than trying to find a time that does not interfere with anything else for the small group to work on the activity. Additionally, I do not have to worry about students feeling excluded or singled out if everyone is participating in goal setting. I believe if everyone is setting goals students may also help their friends remember and follow through on goals. Overall having the whole class set goals will help the classroom community.
Goals will also be short term and last the duration of a lesson. This will take more time because we will have to work to set new goals for each lesson. But I will have students choose from the list we develop as a class. You can see on the sheet students will put the lesson the time and what their goal is. This will have less space to reflect but will be simple and focus students.
I will have conversations with the students through the week to see how the goals are working out for them, to get them thinking and to make sure I know how they are thinking to help inform me about why they may be making certain choices.
As with phase one, I will have an end of the week discussion to review how goal setting went. The difference with phase two is that I will be talking about goal setting in general not based on how the student did on their specific goal. This is because students will be setting many short-term goals throughout the week instead of one overall goal that they have to keep track of.
Based on my findings I will decide whether we should do individual or class goals for the second week. During week I will keep up with short-term goals and end of the week discussions on goal setting.
The first step for phase two is to work with students on better understanding goals. When we come back on Monday from thanksgiving break, I am going to do an interactive power point that gets students interested in talking about goals. I want students to think about what types of goals they can set, how these goals affect the classroom community, and why we are setting goals. After we think about all of these things I want to ask students what goals they think we could work on as a class or what they individually could work on to help the class. From there we will talk about the specific actions they can take to make these goals work. After that I will put up the list of goals they think thought of that they can work on to contribute to the classroom community.
I will have each student write what goal they think they should work on, to give them ownership of over their goals. This will also allow me to see if the goals they choose fit things they should actually work on. I want to talk with a few students and figure out why they chose that goal and get a reading on how self-aware the students are.
From there I will decided if I want to set goals as a whole class or continue with individual goals. I know that no matter if I choose to have students set individual goals or one goal as a class, that I will have the whole class practice short-term goal setting. On day two I will discuss with students the types of goals we can set and then have the class vote on a goal by having a class on the second day
If I do continue with individual goals I will have all students set goals. This way I can have everyone check his or her goals right after a lesson or at the end of the day. It fits better into the schedule to have everyone do an activity rather than trying to find a time that does not interfere with anything else for the small group to work on the activity. Additionally, I do not have to worry about students feeling excluded or singled out if everyone is participating in goal setting. I believe if everyone is setting goals students may also help their friends remember and follow through on goals. Overall having the whole class set goals will help the classroom community.
Goals will also be short term and last the duration of a lesson. This will take more time because we will have to work to set new goals for each lesson. But I will have students choose from the list we develop as a class. You can see on the sheet students will put the lesson the time and what their goal is. This will have less space to reflect but will be simple and focus students.
I will have conversations with the students through the week to see how the goals are working out for them, to get them thinking and to make sure I know how they are thinking to help inform me about why they may be making certain choices.
As with phase one, I will have an end of the week discussion to review how goal setting went. The difference with phase two is that I will be talking about goal setting in general not based on how the student did on their specific goal. This is because students will be setting many short-term goals throughout the week instead of one overall goal that they have to keep track of.
Based on my findings I will decide whether we should do individual or class goals for the second week. During week I will keep up with short-term goals and end of the week discussions on goal setting.
Phase 2 Action Plan Summary
Day 1- Power point and class goal setting discussion
Students picks which goal they think would fit them
Weeks 1 and 2- Set short term goals either as a class or individually
Daily Goals- Have students set individual goals or pick a goal to work on as a class. Fill out goal sheet. Complete planned activity while monitoring student progress. Then have students reflect on their ability to work on goal during the given time frame.
Students picks which goal they think would fit them
Weeks 1 and 2- Set short term goals either as a class or individually
Daily Goals- Have students set individual goals or pick a goal to work on as a class. Fill out goal sheet. Complete planned activity while monitoring student progress. Then have students reflect on their ability to work on goal during the given time frame.
Phase 2 Assessment Plan
Most of my data collection tools will mostly stay the same for phase two. There will still be a student goal setting form, however as you can see below it will be much more to the point. The goal setting for will be for short periods of time. I have included spots for the subject and time so I can see if there is a possible correlation between student behavior and the time of day or subject.
I will continue to take field notes and fill out my observation checklist. This may be more difficult because I will be working with the entire class instead of individual students. Keeping data while teaching a lesson can be challenging especially while trying to note 20 different children and their individual goals.
Finally I will continue to have conferences with students. For phase two I plan on dedicating not only more time to my conferences, but applying a better focus when talking with my students. I really want to work to better understand my students' choices. We will also have more class discussion allowing for team building and social constructivism when learning about goal setting.
Finally I will continue to have conferences with students. For phase two I plan on dedicating not only more time to my conferences, but applying a better focus when talking with my students. I really want to work to better understand my students' choices. We will also have more class discussion allowing for team building and social constructivism when learning about goal setting.
Phase 2 Questions
My original question and sub questions were:
What happens when I work with students to set individual goals?
I will be keeping these question however I will put a better focus on the first question, "How will students respond to setting personal goals?" I really want to work to allow them to set their own goals. This emphasis should effect the results for the other questions.
What happens when I work with students to set individual goals?
- How will students respond to setting personal goals?
- What effects will goal setting have on the class as a community?
- How does setting goals impact student responses to classroom rules and expectations?
I will be keeping these question however I will put a better focus on the first question, "How will students respond to setting personal goals?" I really want to work to allow them to set their own goals. This emphasis should effect the results for the other questions.