Goal Setting Activator

At the beginning of my teaching block, as a way to engage my Grade 5 students, I posed a question that would give them the opportunity to think about goal setting.  I asked “Where do you want to go?” – what places they would like to see and travel to.  After I gave them the chance to think about it, they wrote the place they wanted to travel to on the whiteboard.  Once every student had written one place, we stepped back and examined the board.  I was completely shocked by the variety of places they wanted to see and we discussed the importance of goals and why we need to have goals to succeed.  It was important for me to showcase goal setting because I wanted them to know my goals for the teaching block and what I hoped they would get out of my lessons.  From that point on, at every lesson I indicated what are goals were and how we were going to achieve those goals. I believe that by outlining the goals, which involve the students in the process of learning, the students can create authentic bonds to the material and we create a more cohesive classroom environment.