Dear colleague,
Happy New Year to you. Two things for this first full week of the year:
- Today, I'm going to share with you three kinds of goals that are helpful to set in the new year.
- And as we head into the weekend, I'm going to share with you an exclusive guest post from none other than Jim Burke, a career ELA educator whose retrospective on his work to date is must-read material for all of us who hope to work full and fruitful careers in education.
So let's talk about those three kinds of goals. For the best experience, watch the video below. For a quicker one, just take a look at the three types of goals I'm thinking about this January.
(Not seeing a video? Click here.)
These are three goals I find helpful this time of year.
- Year Goal (Deadline: December 31, 2024): This is a longer-term goal that can be either personal or professional. At this point of my life, I prefer personal to professional goals. These goals can be meaningful achievements or experiences that you genuinely desire, not necessarily grand accomplishments.
- May Goal (Deadline: End of the School Year): The May goal is related to your role as an educator but should be something you have control over. Avoid goals tied to standardized test outcomes and focus instead on goals that are within your influence.
- For example, setting goals to have students read a certain number of articles or engage in a specific number of debates.
- First Week of School in the New Year Goal (Deadline: Early January): This goal is designed to leverage the fresh start of the new year with students. It's an opportunity to reintroduce or reinforce important concepts and habits as students return from the holiday break. Consider what you want students to focus on in the first week of the new year.
So, have you got any of these three kinds of goals, colleague? Please share in the comments below.
Best to you and yours in the new year,
DSJR
P.S. As I release the Principles of Learning course videos this month, I'm leaving enrollment on the course open for any interested participants. If you're game for some good old fashioned DSJ PD to start out the new year, consider enrolling in the inagural cohort today.
Liz Campbell says
Thank you for this post and the video! Here are my goals:
– Year: My husband and I have wanted to visit Portugal for years, but it’s just been a dream so far. This year I want to take steps towards making it reality by each saving at least $50 per month (plus part/all of our tax refund) to have $2,000 in our Portugal account and watching travel blogs intentionally by recording at least 5 things we want to do in Portugal (and maybe starting to map out where we’ll stay and what time of year we’ll go).
– May: Try pop-up debates! I heard you speak about these at NCTE (and again in this video), but I haven’t really explored or tried them yet despite my students saying they want to debate in class.
– “First” Week: I want students to reconnect to their self-selected learning goals and do something similar to this (example: Self-Selected Learning Goal – I will read window and mirror books to build empathy, understanding, and connection; Year Goal – Read at least 2 mirror books and 3 window books; May Goal – Write a short response about empathy, understanding, and connection I’ve built from at least 1 mirror book and at least 1 window book; Week – Determine which 5 books I want to read this year)
Terri Egan says
Week Goal: 1) Ask students to assess themselves on the Key Beliefs – I’ve done this as a rubric every semester for two years, and when I ask them to respond to a follow-up question that their initial responses generate, I’m always amazed by what I learn about students’ perceptions about THEIR learning; it helps me target lessons towards what they really need. 2) Take time to really SEE everyone on the first days back from break.
May Goal: Help students identify one key weakness and make identifiable progress towards it.
Year Goal: Finish sequencing literature, vocabulary, and grammar lessons to pass on to newer colleagues.