Monitoring goal progress
Overview
Best Practices in Monitoring Goals for Academic or Emotional Skill Improvement
Purpose
Progress monitoring has become a critically important tool for improving the academic outcomes of all students. goal-setting and monitoring activities work to improve student outcomes by both building motivation to engage in learning tasks and by developing the cognitive skills to self-regulate behavior to attain those goals. The motivational and cognitive power of goal-setting can be seen through the mottos of “working harder” and “working smarter”. This tool enables PASL practitioners to allow students to “work smarter” by supporting self-regulatory behaviors in which students monitor whether they are achieving desired learning outcomes and change a behavior or strategy to improve their learning.
Implementation
Goal monitoring can be done multiple times in any class; grades 9-12; Once a quarter, beginning in October
Details
Student vs. Teacher Tracking
There are two main types of tracking: student-centered tracking and teacher-centered tracking. Teacher-centered tracking is a system that you are in control of and update and convey its messages/trends to your students. This tracking is generally more isolated from the rest of your classroom structures, and since it is driven by you, it will not thrive as much on student investment. This tracking should not only be in the form of a personal spreadsheet other system, but also visual, class-by-class or student-by-student trackers displayed in your classroom and on hall walls.
Student-centered tracking systems generally require more instructional time than a teacher-centered system, but offer more student investment since students are driving the tracking and trend discoveries, and making connections of their own. Student tracking systems usually center around some sort of individual goal setting, and chart that progress using various forms of student-friendly organizers such as big idea/objective inventories, unit by unit graphs, or objective by objective charts.
What should I track? When should I track?
What you should track depends first and foremost on how you’re using PASL in your classroom. Since the point of tracking is increasing student investment, pick what you track based on that. Personally track students’ mastery and progress towards your big goal. Visually track what will mean the most to your students. Some examples of student-centered tracking include:
Homework turn-ins
Objective mastery percentages
Quiz scores
Unit test scores
Time spent reading
Behavior
Connection to other components
This tool is also relevant to Intentional Use of Data.