Beyond the S.M.A.R.T goal: Teaching students to plan for success

By Courtney Luce

Social Emotional Learning is all the rage in education. A quick breeze through Twitter and you will see posts and “ed chats” about teaching the whole child. We all know it’s important, but there are two major issues: When do we find time to do it? How do we do it?

Okay, so as teachers we are responsible for about three-million things, so adding in teaching-kids-how-to-human seems like just another thing that spreads us too thin to do any one thing well. But let me ask you this, what might your day look like in your classroom if all of your students were on-task, focused, and knew how to learn? Teaching kids effective social and emotional skills are the key to this. But don’t just take my word for it. Mahoney, Durlak, and Weissberg (2018) report that a meta-analysis of SEL programs with over 270,000 participants from kindergarten through 12th grade found that:

• Compared to control students, students participating in SEL programs showed significantly more positive outcomes with respect to enhanced SEL skills, attitudes, positive social behavior, and academic performance, and significantly lower levels of conduct problems and emotional distress.
• The higher academic performance of SEL program participants translated into an 11 percentile-point gain in achievement, suggesting that SEL programs tend to bolster, rather than detract from, students’ academic success.

Basically, it’s good for students and better for you if they have strong SEL skills, but how do we implement this type of learning in our classrooms? Well, you could implement some type of SEL program as a whole school that all students receive, but realistically, that isn’t going to happen tomorrow. Luckily, research shows that some SEL instruction is better than no SEL instruction, so let’s get started!

I believe that starting with goal setting is the easiest to tackle. It is concrete for people who aren’t touchy-feely and can easily fit into any content area. Here are some simple steps for implementing goal-setting (I have linked to a Free PDF sheet to use as a printable. The steps that follow are from this handout).

STEP 1: The first part of goal-setting is setting your intentions. On the goal-planning guide, I frame these as questions for the students to set their intentions for their day. These questions are “Today I would like to,” “Today I have to,” “Today I would like to be,” and “Today I have to be.” This allows them to express both their interests and needs for the day. As a teacher it also gives you a check point. For instance, if the student writes “Today I would like to be focused and ready to learn,” and she is acting in a way contrary to that, you can remind her of her intentions. (See sample here)

Step 2: Develop 1-3 goals for the day. Here you can teach your students about S.M.A.R.T. goals (if you are unsure of what these are, check out this article). The time frame on these goals should be one day, but you can also use this guide for long term goal-setting with some modifications. The idea here, though, is to start small.

Step 3: Create action steps for the goals. All goals need action steps because there are usually several pieces to success with each goal. For instance, if the goal is to take good notes in history class for the day to prepare for a quiz, the action steps might be to come to class with the correct notebook and writing utensil, choose a seat away from distractions with a clear view to the board, and to ask questions when confused. Action steps should be the steps needed to be successful at the goal. Research shows that goals without action steps are harder to complete.

Step 4: Identify resources. Resources should be the people or tools you have to complete your goal. For example, the student working on taking great notes in history might identify his teacher as a resource. This could be a reminder to ask questions during or after class as a resource. He may also identify a friend or classmate that he knows has a history of taking good notes. He might ask her to see her notes after class to check for any confusion. He may also identify a web resource or a text book that can help him fill in any gaps in information.

Step 5: Reflection! This is essential, especially for teaching growth mindset. When students reflect, the idea is that they look at where they were successful in achieving their goal and if there were any breakdowns. By identifying where things worked or broke down, students can start to realize that their success or their struggles are linked to gaps in their plans, not inherent ability. For example, if the student who wrote the action step to “choose a seat away from distractions with a clear view of the board” ends up sitting by his friend in the back of class, that allows you as the teacher to show that his struggle was in meeting his action steps, not because “I suck at history!”

Goal setting is just one small piece to the Social Emotional Learning puzzle, but a useful one to your students. It will help them see that people who are successful have clear goals and plans for meeting them. I get that time is of the essence in all of our classrooms, but by teaching students to set goals daily, you can leverage your instructional time more effectively.