Student Goal Boards

What is a goal board?

It is a visual guide used for students that helps them keep track of what their individual goals are for a particular subject area.

On and off I have used goal board in my classroom. I first started using goal boards with Daily 5 and Cafe but quickly realized that what they presented just didn’t really fit with how I was teaching. It was like fitting a square peg into a round hole. It was good but just not right.

I have had student groups that have used it and student groups that have not.

As I move through the year with my students I realize that setting clear goals and making path to achieve these goals will be paramount to helping the achieve success.

So a goal board will be going up in my classroom very soon to help my students set and acheive goals.

Where are goal boards used?

Goal boards can be used in any subject matter but I do think that it is important to start small and stick with one subject area. This then can be moved into other curriculum areas as students are ready and get the hang of the whole process.

For my classroom I will be beginning with a goal board for writing. This is a huge focus of student voice and choice in my classroom and an area where students can begin to take on more ownership of their own learning. Together we have conferenced many times about their previous writing samples so they are familiar with where they need to go and what they need to do.

Why the goal board then?

Well the specific purpose of this is to make learning visible and to have a visible board that serves to hold students accountable and keep students organized.

If you have students that are

• visual learners
• struggle with organization
• have executive functioning difficulties
• struggle to respond to feedback to make improvements
• want more autonomy and control over their learning

If you as a teacher want

• your students to keep track of their own learning
• students to be responsible for their own learning and progress
• a simple visual way to track students (status of the class)
• to show student voice and choice in your classroom
• to not be the only one tracking all the data in your classroom

Yep that is exactly what I want and need. You?

What do you need to get started?

To make a goal board you need some of the following materials.

1. bulletin board space or a tri-fold board
2. coloured paper
3. printer
4. sticky notes

1st Choose your subject area.

I have picked writing as a good place to start.

Now look at different categories that students can work on within this subject area.

Math: Solving Problems, Choosing Strategies, Computational. If you follow the Ontario curriculum using the process expectations here would be great categories to follow. They could be combined and reduced to 4-5 categories as goal areas. Alternatively you could select the 4 most needed areas for students to focus on.

Science and Social Studies: Look at the overall expectations of your curriculum or the big ideas. These will be great goal areas or areas to focus on for a goal board. Alternatively you could use the categories of the achievement chart that include Knowledge and Understanding, Thinking, Communication, and Application.

Language: You can look at writing goals such breaking apart the writing process into sections and have students focus on one area specifically of the writing process. For reading you can look at areas such as fluency, decoding, and comprehension.

Use I Can Statements

For each of your goal categories, you will want to put them in student-friendly language.

Using I can statements to frame your specific goals will help to make these relevant to your students.

Think like a students and try to avoid teacher-speak. Unless you have made teachery phrases part of the language of your classroom then you should avoid putting these on the goal cards.

Track Student Progress

So you post the goal board and students look at it once and never again…

This is what I try to avoid. If I am putting it up then I want it to be used because I feel that it will be valuable.

So how do I do that?

It starts with routine. For a while now I will conference bi-weekly with students on what they are writing. Before they conference with me they fill out a feedback form. This form asks them for their goal. So in part they have been making goals all along. But this hasn’t been a focus.

With the goal board, we will physically identify which goal they are working on. We use a marker, like a sticky note, magnet, etc. that has the students name on it. This name card will go next to the goal that that student is working on. If you are lacking horizontal space this can also be done by putting an area below your goal cards for students to put their name. This will signal which of the goal areas they are focusing on instead of the individual goal card.

Ready to make your own?

Are you ready to try a goal board in your classroom?

If you would like to try the pre-made one that I have for my Ignited Literacy Language Program you can find that here

https://www.madlylearning.com/goalboard