January always brings promises of good intentions, well thought agendas and a new year full of hope. In my part of the country, January is also a slow month with the business of the Holiday season finally coming to a close and cold, wintry weather creating the perfect opportunity to spend more time at home.
Often, because January seems to move at a slower pace than the rest of the year, I find myself a bit overzealous with my goal setting. Too frequent have I set lofty goals full of expectation to find myself already giving up come February 1st. In order to avoid “goal burnout”, keep your goals challenging but obtainable. In my TESOL (Teaching English Speakers of Other Languages) classes, we often referred to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, commonly referred to as “i+1” and I like to apply the same hypothesis to goal setting. Krashen’s hypothesis stated that if a language learner’s current level of competence in the foreign language is i then i+1 is the next immediate step along the development continuum. If we start out attempting i+2 the curriculum would be too difficult for students and they would easily feel defeated. i+1 is manageable yet still rewarding when accomplished. We can apply this same philosophy in our goal setting. Aim for an i+1 goal: a goal that will extend you beyond your comfort zone, but not be too challenging that you are unable to accomplish it.
To avoid setting too many goals, and therefore ensuring burnout, I try to set a goal in just three different areas of my professional life. This year my categories are: Inside the Classroom, Professional Learning, and Building Relationships. These categories allow me to narrow my focus and keep my priorities in check. They also allow me to attempt to balance the many hats we as educators are called to wear without putting on extra, unnecessary ones.
Inside the Classroom
January is a great time to assess how you are progressing with your students. If you teach a year-long course, now is the time to create a goal that will truly impact your students. After all, you should really know them by now. You know what makes them excited to come to class, what skills they struggle with and where their education needs to progress by the end of the year.
My goal for inside the classroom is to provide opportunities for student choice. For several units in the Spring 2015 semester, I want to give students a choice in how they can demonstrate mastery of a concept. I played around with student choice in the fall and loved the increased student engagement enough to be committed to provide opportunities for student choice in the spring. I’m starting with my Tic-Tac-Toe Menu Assessment for Electricity. Do you use student choice in your classroom? I would love to hear about it!
Professional Learning
As the Science Instructional Facilitator, I have the enormous task of leading our Science teachers in incorporating the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) into their classrooms over the next several years. Therefore my professional learning is centered on the NGSS. My goal is to watch one webinar a month provided by the NSTA Learning Center on the NGSS beginning with the Science and Engineering Practices.
Building Relationships
We are at a time in education where everything is changing and there is a lot of work to be done. This can and often leads to a staff full of overwhelmed teachers who just want feel appreciated and acknowledged for a job well done. My goal is to acknowledge and celebrate in teachers successes in their classrooms, because that’s where it truly counts. I am determined to notice at least one positive experience in a teacher’s classroom each week and to let them know how valuable their skills are by writing them an old-fashioned thank you note.
As I’m writing my goals down, a million more come to mind that I could also focus on, but this is where I will stop myself. The importance of goal setting is keeping the number of goals to a realistic amount that you will be able to focus on and accomplish. I’m looking forward to seeing the outcomes of the goals I’ve set for myself.
What are your goals for 2015? Share with your professional learning network on Twitter and Facebook!