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CHAPTER 4

SET GUTSY GOALS

What would you predict is the greatest single contributing factor to student achievement? Would you say parental support, genes, or school quality? Would you guess effort, past achievement, or socioeconomic status? Any of those would be a pretty good guess. But there’s a factor that contributes almost three years’ worth of gains. The problem is most teachers don’t know what it is.

The research is solid. Students’ self-reported grades and expectations of their success (or failure) in class have a whopping effect size of 1.44, ranking it near the top of all contributors to student achievement (Hattie, 2009), contributing to nearly three years of growth. Students having some control over more short-term goals also has an effect size of 1.21 (Willett, Yamashita, & Anderson, 1983).

Low-performing students expect (based on their own past performance) to struggle or fail at school each year. That’s why high-performing teachers never allow students’ low expectations to become the norm. For example, if you ask a student who has failed in mathematics for three years in a row his or her goal, it would likely be to just pass. But that student goal will not cut it in a high-performing teacher’s class where goals are advanced or expert level, not just basic proficiency. Starting the first day of school, strong teachers encourage students to set the long-term bar sky-high. For the moment, don’t worry about buy-in. Later in this chapter, I’ll show you how you get students to believe (with even more strategies in chapter 17, page 171).

You might say, “But what if the student does not work hard?” Actually, whether a student works hard, or not, is a choice the student makes, and it is not genetic. It is based on a host of factors, but these four factors are near the top of the list (Dweck, 2002; Stipek, 2002).

1. Students’ prediction of whether success is possible and expectancy of personal success based on their past

2. Their perceptions about their teacher’s capacity to help them succeed

3. Students’ self-assessment

4. Their overall self-concept

The good news is, you can influence every single one of these four factors. In this chapter, we begin with the baseline tools you need for creating gutsy goals that lead to mastery, look at the practice of setting those goals, establish ways you can get buy-in from students (give them a reason to believe), and then use micro goals to help close any gaps.

Creating Gutsy Goals for Mastery

Gutsy goals are jaw-dropping, nearly impossible, shoot-for-the-stars milestones. In 1962, President Kennedy’s gutsy national goal was to land a man on the moon and return him safely before the end of the decade (Kennedy, 1962), which the United States achieved in 1969. However inevitable it might seem in hindsight, he set the goal before the science had even been invented to reach the goal.

Use this concept to get students pumped up about something far greater than finishing a chapter in a textbook or merely passing the class. Why would you set goals you might not reach? James Cameron, director of two of the highest-grossing films of all time (Titanic and Avatar), said we should set impossibly high goals so that when we fail, we will fail above others’ successes (as cited in Goodyear, 2009). For teachers, this means setting goals of mastery, not merely basic understanding or proficiency. Setting goals for mastery is what leads all students to graduate (see part seven, page 185).

The mastery process is one where a teacher says, “I don’t just want them to get it right. I want them to become so proficient that they can’t get it wrong. Only then will we move on.” In mastery, there is no personal best or just good enough. Remember, even modest, achievable goals have a positive 0.52 effect size (one year’s gain), but mastery as a goal has a huge 0.96 effect size (two years of growth) for disadvantaged and lower-ability students (Kulik & Kulik, 1987). High-performing, high-poverty schools have this core achievement driver (mastery, not basic or proficiency levels) in common, and it’s a must for your classroom (Johnson, Uline, & Perez, 2014).

Yes, mastery can take an extra 10 to 50 percent more classroom time (which is always at a premium). This extra classroom time is something you can typically invest on more varied uses of a new skill, under differing conditions—first solo, then with partners (refer to the fifty-fifty rule, page 21)—as well as invoking more stressful conditions. This extra time pays off dramatically in improved student performance over the long term.

Understand, the big-picture goal is the process as well as the destination. This means gutsy goals are those you cannot meet until you grow into one who can reach them. To that end, the best gutsy goals are revised SMART goals (Conzemius & O’Neill, 2014).

• Strategic and specific

• Measurable

• Amazing (rather than attainable)

• Relevant (rather than results oriented)

• Time bound

Remember, the mastery process is not just about content. It’s about helping students develop lifelong competencies, such as grit and perseverance, social skills, cognitive skills, and classroom behaviors that make complex, challenging learning worthwhile. Stop being afraid to fail, and start being bold enough to sell your students on their real potential.

Setting Gutsy Goals

Growing up in the digital generation, most students feel like anything they need to know is just a quick Google search away. The gratification is split-second fast. However, becoming a good learner requires the capacity to dig deeply into a topic, which requires having persistence, thinking about it, clarifying it, analyzing it, and developing a complex, yet clear, understanding. This is hard work, and most students don’t know how to do it. Yet, in higher-performing urban schools, the deeper, mastery learning is a key part of the solution (Johnson et al., 2014). To truly have a consistent achievement mindset, you must have something special worth doing.

In your classroom, student goals should produce something of value—something that is personally or culturally relevant—and be part of something bigger than themselves. Second, the goal must have specificity for a big impact (0.94 effect size; Marzano, 1998). Third, you must tell students why they can believe in you and the goals you have set for them. Finally, you’ll need to set micro goals (see page 48) so they can get concrete evidence that the gutsy goals are happening.

Let’s say that last year a teacher had 50 percent of her students reach proficiency in mathematics. I have heard those teachers set what seems like lofty new goals for class like, “At least 80 percent of my students will be proficient in mathematics, and 20 percent or more will get to mastery level.” These might be higher goals than you’ve ever had before, but sorry, they are not gutsy goals. Here’s a gutsy goal: “My first-grade students will read, write, do mathematics, and behave so that by the end of the year, they are ready for third grade, not second.” This goal makes two years of gains with your students, and it is achievable.

Remember, if you work in a school with high-poverty students, getting one and a half to three years of academic progress per year is basic progress. Make your own goals jaw-dropping, amazing, and unlikely (but possible) to reach. If you’re a secondary teacher, let your secondary students know about the gutsy goals you have for them so they fully understand what they need to achieve. Likewise, help your students to set their own gutsy goals. Here are three examples of different types of goals you or your students might have at different education levels.

• An elementary result goal: “My second-grade students will read, write, do mathematics, and behave so that by the end of the year, they are ready for fourth grade, not third.”

• A secondary process goal: One science teacher’s goal might be, “I will teach my students how to rebuild a city from scratch when disaster strikes.” One middle school English teacher might ask her students to write a paper to change the world. Their final papers could be read to community leaders, and the feedback would be life changing. A mathematics teacher’s goal might be, “My students will write a handbook of tips for ‘How to succeed in math,’ during the last month of the semester.”

• A student relational goal: “I will know every other student in class by first name.” Or, “I will initiate three new friendships from this class before we end.”

Remember, you’re not saying it’s easy. Setting low goals (like, “Be ready for class each day”) diminishes your students’ potential, selling everyone short including you. Go for the stars by learning how to create high class expectations with high goals to get students to the promised land of consistent high effort.

Giving a Reason to Believe

When you share gutsy goals, those around may be tempted to roll their eyes. It is as if they are saying, “Yeah, sure, right; like that’s going to happen.” Students in particular may have trouble buying into the gutsy goals you set, which is why it’s essential for you to give students a reason to believe in you. Big goals sound good, but unless you can back them up, you will lose your followers. How you do this is critical. Let’s visit those who already do this well—high-performing teachers.

Jamie Irish, a high school mathematics teacher in New Orleans, sets two gutsy goals. One goal is to beat the scores of a nearby, more affluent school, Lusher Charter School (Irish, 2012). He also sets a gutsy goal of being able to beat a particular mathematics score on a college entrance test. To sell students on why the first goal is important, he tells them Lusher is a selective-admission school that consistently ranks in the top ten in the state because almost all students score either mastery or advanced on the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (the state’s high-stakes test administered in fourth and eighth grades). He also says that most Lusher students go on to attend top colleges, which is why a basic competency is not good enough. He leads his class on a mission to crush Lusher from day one. His teaching goal on day one is to expose the fallacy that passing is acceptable. The new student goal is advanced proficiency. He creates a tangible opposition (Lusher) and tangible reward (free tuition to college) when test scores are high. To affirm it, his whole class reads a newspaper article together that documents the correlations of LEAP scores with later ACT college entrance scores. For students to qualify for a scholarship providing free tuition to in-state universities, they know they must score at advanced proficiency on the ACT. He is creating greater expectations and giving them a reason to buy into them. The students know why basic is too low.

All semester long, he says, in essence, to his students, “This goal we have is critically important. I know you can do it with smart effort. I care about you. I care about your education. I will not give up on you. I will reteach this as many times as needed until everyone gets it. Because we are all in this together, if one of us fails, we all fail—and that includes me.” Through these statements, the teacher shows students the goal is worth their time, and he affirms their capacity to succeed, their relationship, and resolve.

It takes just twenty seconds to give students a reason to believe in you. All you have to say is some variation of, “I care about you, I’m good at what I do, and I’ll work hard, persist, and learn from my mistakes. You do your part, and I guarantee I’ll do my part. I won’t let any of you fail. Now, let’s get to work!”

Did you ever have a teacher say these to you in school? I didn’t. That kind of confidence, when backed up by subsequent action, can move mountains.

Reinforce your gutsy goals weekly, so that students can visualize them, hear them echo in their minds, and feel them viscerally. Post reminders and encourage students to talk to others about them. Many teachers (at both elementary and secondary levels) post college banners around the classroom. These are inspiring, especially if you write the names of past students who have gone on to that college below the banners. That’s inspiration. Unless you help students understand that it is the pursuit of the goals that makes life worthwhile—and that we all will encounter temporary failures—they may quit on you and on themselves.

Finally, and maybe most important, help teach students how to deal with failure. Tell them that failure is part of life and part of progress. Remind them often that failure is simply feedback on what did not work. Failures are lessons. Failures teach us. They can be positive when we positively accept and learn from them. How we respond to failure defines us, not the encounter itself. Getting knocked down is nothing; getting back up is everything. Students will show their true grit (see chapter 6, page 57) and get back up if their vision of worthwhile goals is strong enough and they have reinforcement along the way. That’s where micro goals come in.

Using Micro Goals to Close the Gaps

For most students, having gutsy goals is exciting. However, it’s difficult to reactivate the long-term sky-high goals over and over on cue. Any of us would find it hard to stay psyched about a goal that seems so far away. Training for the Olympics or trying to get an advanced degree are big motivators, but still, we all need those hourly, daily, and weekly nudges to keep us going. It is the trail of emotional highs that keeps us moving forward, not the once-a-year goal.

That’s why you’ll need to constantly set micro goals that your students can reach within a week or less. These specific, concrete goals can:

• Reaffirm a specific competency

• Give measurable progress toward the gutsy goals

• Provide a quick emotional affirmation and moment for a celebration

Because micro goals allow students to get immediate feedback for themselves, the effect size is a sizzling 0.97 (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). That’s almost two years’ worth of gains! Set daily and weekly goals that students can reach with a solid effort. This step is critical. They need to see that they can reach the big gutsy goals, one bite at a time. When students set their own micro goals, the effect size is a strong 1.21—well over two years’ worth of academic progress (Marzano et al., 2001). Although adults understand the power of greater expectations, students will use their past experiences to set goals and often set them too low. However, they don’t know how far they can go with an amazing teacher (like you). You can help them set and link the micro goal completion to the bigger gutsy goal. Then, every week, check in on your goal progress.

Many students will get discouraged on this path because they will hit obstacles. For some, they may interpret the roadblocks as a lack of ability. This is why you must continually build the growth mindset (“Your brain can change. IQ can change. Take three continuous steps forward. The one-step setbacks are temporary, and they’re simply feedback to help you discover a better way”). Unless you’re proactive in this, the setbacks will change everything.

Lastly, assume the best of your students. Always pursue the gutsy goals with a high expectation for mastery. When students get questions right or reach their micro goal, celebrate and continue interacting for even higher-order learning. There is always room for improvement. If they struggle, help them uncover the false assumptions or strategies. Help them grow. Most students learn how to play the classroom game of being safe: “Just say what the teacher wants to hear.” Do not let them sink to that level. Higher learning requires not only the achievement mindset but also the emotional safety for a relentless intellectual curiosity. If you give up on students, they’ll quit too.