How to Guarantee Success: Set Smart Goals

When you think about teacher professional development goals many things come to mind. Well, It depends on the lens from which you are standing. Ultimately everyone wants what’s best for the students but we know that the “one size fits all” approach has not been working for many years. What if we asked for teacher goals and created an Individualized plan for each teacher??

Now we cannot provide everything for their goals but we can use education as the focus of their future learning. For example, just say we had a teacher who wanted to learn more about the Science of Reading, her professional development would include academic courses, and training modules from other institutions, and the teacher will have a mentor that touches base with her all paid by a district stipend which falls under professional development. Once a teacher has made that selection for the year, they are the school experts and implementation reflects their goal. Eventually, they are mentors to others in the school which allows for teachers to envision a path for themselves.

How do I even begin setting SMART GOALS?

First, brainstorm a list of areas you feel you could improve on. I’ll go first: incorporating movement into my lessons, having an extension activity for all my math lessons, more student-led research projects, better routines for transition times, more engaging lessons, learning more about the science of reading, participating in a book study with my peers on how to increase student engagement. There is never a lack of learning and growth opportunities as a teacher! When I was doing my teacher training, I got some great advice. My mentor teacher told me that as she was lesson planning, she knew she could not have superstar lessons for every subject every day, so she set a goal for herself to have one superstar lesson per subject per week. This made the goal of lesson planning manageable, and it was through this that by the end of each year there was a bank of engaging, effective lessons that could be used year after year, and each year it grew exponentially.

I have created my list so… now what?

Look at your list now and think about which of the areas you want to focus on. Think of how it could be a SMART goal. Can you make it specific? For example, I will have at least one student-led research project once every 9 weeks. Next, is it measurable? There will be at least one project per 9 weeks. Check. Now let’s get to the nitty-gritty. Is it achievable? When you are thinking of your goal, think of what work is going to be required on your part. Is this doable? Are you being realistic? Make sure you set a goal that you can achieve in the time you have given yourself. The next step is asking yourself, “is it relevant?” Will this improve student learning? No one knows what your students need better than you do. Are you looking to further engage them, make them independent learners, and give them opportunities for authentic inquiry and research? Thinking about this is a good way to confirm that the goal you have chosen is a good one. Lastly, make sure it is time-bound. You don’t want your goal to be vague. For example, I am going to be a better reading teacher. That is a great idea but how will you know when you will be a better reading teacher? To follow the example we started with, it is time-bound because we have an expectation that something will take place EVERY nine weeks.

Is it important to share these ideas with my students?

By looking at these 5 components of a SMART goal and using them to write your goal down you are stepping in the right direction to get that goal accomplished and have it improve your teaching practice. Do you want to take this process even further? Teach it to your students. An article in Edutopia talks about the importance of teaching resourcefulness to students. Children learn to be resourceful through learning the stories of resourceful people. “What did they do? Why? How did they accomplish their goals?” (Price-Mitchell 2015). After looking at how others made goals and achieved them, they can then use the SMART goal model to make their own goals. This could be a great exercise to start out the new year. Share with your students your SMART goal and get them to write out SMART goals of their own. At the end of the year, you can all analyze how you met your goal

References:

Locke Edwin & Gary Latham. “Goal Setters Perform Better.” Northpass, Nick Santaniello, The Northpass Blog, 05 Oct. 2017. https://www.northpass.com/blog/smart-goals-template-for-strategic-and-data-driven-managers. 16 Dec. 2021.

Price-Mitchell, Marilyn. “Goal-Setting Is Linked to Higher Achievement | Psychology ...” Psychology Today, 14 Mar. 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-moment-youth/201803/goal-setting-is-linked-higher-achievement.

Price-Mitchell, Marilyn. “Teaching for Life Success: Why Resourcefulness Matters.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 13 July 2015, https://www.edutopia.org/blog/8-pathways-why-resourcefulness-matters-marilyn-price-mitchell.