Reflecting on Our Weekly SMART Goals

Every Friday, we are setting aside time to reflect on our goals for the week and continue them or create new ones. This practice fits in beautifully with our Leader In Me program and helps to cultivate student responsibility, especially in the areas of homework and classroom behavior.

If you haven't checked out my previous post on creating SMART Goals and our classroom board, be sure to read that HERE.

Today, we began by jotting down some thoughts and reflections on our Weekly Goals Reflection Sheet:

We went through an example goal together and worked on explaining why a goal was or was not accomplished this week. This provided some *fantastic* discussion about learning from "failures"-- and my kids really got the chance to understand that not achieving your weekly goal was more about a learning experience than just a perceived black mark on their week. We also looked back at the SMART Goal sheet from last week and many could see why they did not achieve their goal based on one or more parts of that acronym (mainly, Attainable).

I had them attach their sticky note goal to the blank square and then judge themselves on their effort put forth to achieve this goal. This was to reinforce that even if you didn't hit the goal, the energy and effort you put into it matters. My kids were surprisingly honest with this and even those who did achieve their goal gave themselves straight or frown faces because they felt their goal wasn't challenging enough.... perfect feedback to consider when making next week's goals!

The last section is all about "Next Steps" they will take with the upcoming week's goal. Will it be a continuation? Will it build on last week's goal or be something new altogether? Why? I wasn't too stirct with this last section since I wanted them to brainstorm some ideas for their new sticky note.

The last thing I had them do was to find a Goals Partner. I let them choose the person they wanted to work with because I wanted it to be a friend that they felt comfortable sharing with as well as someone they actually wanted to check in with throughout the next week. They shared their reflection sheet from last week together and chatted about next steps for a few minutes. I had them jot down their partner because I plan on using this system frequently and build upon what a good Goals Partner does (and does not do, ha!) to help their friend reach their goal.

I am fortunate to have a friend (and Goals Partner, I suppose!) who always encourages me to write WOW Goals, or Within One Week Goals. This was the perfect acronym for my students and fit in with our goals timeline, so today we adjusted the first sentence to read, "Within one week, I will... I'll know I've made this goal because..." and we hung this wording right below our SMART Goals chart.

Although this is only Week 2 of our SMART Goals work, I am already seeing some improvement with their wording and especially the Attainable goals they are writing. I have seen quite a few kids stay on the same path, but others hop around, and many are creating goals for themselves that I would have never thought to include. I love how they've grasped the structure this provides and I'm hoping with the incorporation of Goals Partners, next week's reflections will be even stronger and their goals even more successful.

If you're interested in the Weekly Class Goal Reflection, it's available as a freebie in my TpT Store HERE.

Now, to think of my own WOW Goal for next week...

Find more Goal-Setting Posts here: