Today students took time to organize their notebooks, disposing of any old, graded paperwork and cleaning out their binders to prepare for the new quarter with a fresh, clean start.
We set-up a new Table of Contents and began our first entry by talking about SMART Goals. By discussing our New Year's Resolutions, students began to develop both a Personal Goal and an Academic Goal for themselves, making sure that each was Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-limited. (Note that I made some modifications to the traditional acronym to better suit our purposes.)
Students next worked to develop an Action Plan and identify Next Steps that they could be taken today, by next week, and by next month, at which point we will make our goals even SMART-ER by Evaluating our progress and Refocusing and Refining our approach.
Tonight's Homework was to share one or both of their SMART Goals out loud with a parent or someone else significant in their lives (not a classmate) to order to develop a degree of accountability to that person and to commit themselves to accomplishing the goal.
We set-up a new Table of Contents and began our first entry by talking about SMART Goals. By discussing our New Year's Resolutions, students began to develop both a Personal Goal and an Academic Goal for themselves, making sure that each was Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-limited. (Note that I made some modifications to the traditional acronym to better suit our purposes.)
Students next worked to develop an Action Plan and identify Next Steps that they could be taken today, by next week, and by next month, at which point we will make our goals even SMART-ER by Evaluating our progress and Refocusing and Refining our approach.
Tonight's Homework was to share one or both of their SMART Goals out loud with a parent or someone else significant in their lives (not a classmate) to order to develop a degree of accountability to that person and to commit themselves to accomplishing the goal.