It can be difficult to imagine our primary-aged students effectively self-directing their learning, but really, students in Kinder-2nd grade are at an age when they are still so curious about the world around them. If we spend those formative years encouraging that curiosity and desire to learn, maybe they can carry that passion for learning with them into their upper grade career in which we, unfortunately, start to see our students' innate curiosity start to wane in favor of compliance and getting the work done for a grade.
In order to better engage my 2nd graders in their own learning, I have been working on various goal setting and reflections strategies that help students to take ownership of what they need to learn and how they learn best. As we progress through the year, continuously revisiting accomplishments and next steps with our students, we notice that they become more motivated in areas that they may not have been before. We notice them advocate for themselves more and make strategized choices for their learning. It's exciting when my 2nd graders start independently asking for flash cards during their free time because they want to be a better reader, or ask if they can research a topic that they're passionate about just to learn more, or request that I open our math menu and not just our literacy menu during "learning cafe" time because they noticed that their fact fluency to 20 isn't where they want it to be.
Goal Setting Tools & Strategies in 2nd Grade
1) Data review
The first step in helping students take ownership of the learning path is the data review. Part of our first six weeks of school involves a number of reading fluency, reading comprehension, phonics and math assessments that help us understand what skills our students are starting the year with. Once we've completed those assessments, we take the time to individually review the data with each student and what that data tells us. We continue to review assessment data with our students throughout the year (both district benchmark data and ongoing formative assessments) so that they have concrete information to help them celebrate their accomplishments and set their "next steps" goals.
2) Personalized learning plan
During our beginning of year "data chats" with each student we completed a personalized learning plan with each child using the template below. The template was inspired by the book How to Personalize Learning by Barbara Bray & Kathleen McClaskey and is a meant to be a living document for students and teachers to revisit together throughout the year. It includes space for not only setting goals but also devising a plan for achieving those goals. At the beginning of the year a lot of the work plan was more teacher-directed, as most students don't yet have an idea of how they learn best or what resources they have access to. As the year goes on, and we revisit this document after each district benchmark, students have a better idea of what resources they have at their disposal and which of those resources helps them the most.
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| Weekly goal setting in Seesaw |
3) Weekly goal setting activities
We also teach our students how to set weekly learning goals and have them reflect on those goals at the end of the week. Students usually set one goal each week based on either a project they want to accomplish, or a skill that they want to get better at (based on informal self-assessments of what work might have been challenging for them the week prior or what topic they might want to learn more about). The goal settings & reflections are pushed out as activities in Seesaw that students complete during their Monday & Friday morning "soft starts".
4) Morning meeting/Closing circle goal setting
As a Responsive Classroom school, our daily morning meetings & closing circles are also prime opportunity to make goal setting a part of our classroom culture. We often ask students to set, share or reflect on daily learning or behavior goals during circle time, sometimes with just a partner and sometimes with the whole class. Sharing their goals aloud helps some keep themselves accountable and for some is a chance to improve their own goal setting by learning from others.
5) Self-assessment strategy
An important part of teaching students to be self-aware and self-directed in their learning is also teaching them how to effectively reflect on their learning. We use some simple self-assessment strategies with our 2nd graders to help them be more accountable to the learning goals that they've set for themselves.
One of those is a simple 3/2/1 rubric that can be customized to numerous activities or projects. We've asked students to use this rubric to reflect on everything from behaviors that we've taught and are practicing, to communication and social-emotional skills, to how well they did on their learning goal for the week. We also use more detailed rubrics and class-created rubrics on specific assignments and projects, but the 3/2/1 rubric is our go to for frequent and formative check-ins.6) Check lists or "to-do" lists
In order to teach executive functioning skills including organization and how to make a plan, I also like to use "to-do" lists or check off sheets with my 2nd graders. The to-do lists we usually fill in whole class as I assign a project that is considered a "must do". We revisit the list whole group, as well, so that students can practice checking items off or prioritizing tasks.
I also use menu-style check off sheets to teach students how to make strategic choices for their learning. In our CAFE/Daily 5 style literacy and math blocks, students often have choice time after a lesson. The choice time format includes instruction in how to make choices that will help us learn best. For example, if a student hasn't practiced writing in several days, they'll know that by revisiting their check list they should prioritize writing during choice time. Or if a student's weekly goal is to improve their phonics, then maybe iReady is a good choice on that day.
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| Link to Lit Cafe choice log |
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| Link to Math Cafe choice log |
