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Student Reports – Personal Learning Goals

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Supporting students – Developing personal learning goals

Developing personal learning goals

Students need to understand that the process of setting learning goals is a key part of their learning. Learning goals can help students close the gap between what they have achieved and what they want to achieve. Effective personal learning goals:

  • are personally important to the student
  • can be attained through the student’s own actions
  • have a reasonable chance of being achieved in a set time frame (e.g. a semester)
  • include a specific plan of action
  • answer the student’s questions:
    • What do I want to be able to do?
    • How will I succeed in this goal?
    • What do I need to learn?
    • Why will this help my learning?
    • What actions should I take to help achieve this goal?
    • How will my behaviour be different in the future?

It is important that students develop a sense of personal ownership of their learning goals. A combination of discussion, sharing, and writing can help students develop a sense of commitment and a range of goal development skills and strategies.

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Support activities

Ways of supporting students to develop personal learning goals include:

  • Guiding students about the kinds of goals to set and the importance of choosing a limited number of goals related to their own learning needs.
  • Supporting students to reflect on themselves as learners, and become more aware of their strengths and weaknesses. Teachers may use a number of self-assessment strategies and tools to help students reflect on what they have learnt and where they want to go next.
  • Providing students with a set of statements to focus on their goals, such as:
    • ‘My strengths are…’
    • ‘I feel frustrated when…’
    • ‘I need help with…’
    • ‘I need to find out more about…’
  • Writing down goals as declarations of intent, not simply a wish list. ‘I will be persistent and focused on my maths tasks’ is stronger than ‘I want to be persistent and focused on my maths tasks’.
  • Elaborating on what goals are and which ones are ‘SMART’. For example, all staff in one school adopted the acronym SMART in an attempt to provide a common schema for students to determine the goals they wish to attain. Although there are many interpretations of the acronym, this school asked students to evaluate their goals in terms of whether they were:
    • S pecific
    • M eaningful
    • A ction-based
    • R ealistic
    • T ime-based.
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  • In the early stages, providing students with examples of personal learning goals from which to select, as this can facilitate the process of goal setting and allow students to see how learning goals can be defined. For example, ‘I will ask the right kind of questions that might help me understand better’ is more specific than ‘I will ask questions’. Students might use the examples of learning goals provided and work individually or in groups to define learning goals that are clear, specific and can be achieved within the specified time, such as a semester.
  • Setting up processes where students comment on each others’ personal learning goals. Pair or small group discussions or student presentations may encourage students to talk about and share their learning goals with others. This will also help students learn from others how to express goals, and lead to strategies to achieve them.
  • Discussing with students:
    • achievements and challenges from the previous semester
    • their strengths and areas for improvement, both in and out of class
    • their goals for the short and long-term.
  • In leading the discussion, teachers can reinforce the need to:
    • set achievable and worthwhile goals
    • develop a plan of action for achieving their goals
    • plan for monitoring and reflecting regularly on their goals.
  • Encouraging students to discuss and present their goals as a publication or presentation which includes:
    • a review of last semester’s goals – achievements, challenges and a short explanation for each
    • learning goals for this semester – rationale for the goal and length of time for achieving the goal
    • an action plan for achieving each goal – actions, possible challenges and how they might be overcome
    • an action plan for monitoring goals – with whom will the student discuss their progress, as well as when and how
    • reflection process – when and how

The publication or presentation can be developed using a variety of software applications and students can use this task, for example, as the first piece in their writing folio. A rubric can be designed by the class to assess the quality of both the development and the writing.

  • Using graphic organisers such as a KWHL table (What do I know? What do I want to find out? How will I find out? What have I learnt or still want to learn?). This strategy encourages students to:
    • actively engage in the process of developing their goals (What do I know? What do I want to find out?)
    • plan for ways to achieve their goals (How will I find out?)
    • assess what they have done to achieve their goals (What have I learnt or still want to learn?).
What do I know? What do I want to know? How will I learn it? What have I learnt?
       
  • Incorporating planning for student personal learning goals within the context of existing programs used at school, such as Habits of Mind and You Can Do It.

For more information, see:

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