rethinking student goal setting

Student goal setting is powerful and has been backed research.

As with anything, there are multiple ways to use current research in a classroom.  After reading EXECUTIVE TOUGHNESS, I lean more towards the idea of challenging students to create process goals instead of results-based goals.

What are wrong with traditional goals?

1. They can undermine happiness or sense of accomplishment.  A student who sets a goal of a 90% might never feel good enough until they accomplish it.
2. Product goals create emotional highs and lows. Students either feel good because you “hit” a target, or feel like  a failure for coming up short.
3. They suggest you can control things that you don’t have control over.  A fifth grader who makes a goal of jumping 2 reading levels really can’t control that.  Can they take steps to make that happen? Sure, but at the end of the day, this goal is really outside of their control.

Instead, let’s set process goals.  Have students create goals based on things they can control, and focus on the process. Teach students that they can be happy with who they are, but still strive to do better.

A proposal for goal setting:

I’m not slamming traditional goal setting, I’m just thinking, this may be a better way.  If we can get students to commit to a process, then the traditional goal will come along, and they’ll have developed powerful habits along the way.