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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).

Before we begin, use figure 4.1 (page 42) to list three goals you have set for students in the past or that you would consider strong goals to use in the future.

As you look over the goals you listed, how do they strike you? Do they reflect highly ambitious results, results that are “good enough,” or did you feel yourself compelled to set goals for students low because doing so feels more realistic?

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 16, page 173).

In this chapter, we begin our implementation of the achievement mindset 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. 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 199).

Figure 4.1: List and support three ideas for classroom goals.

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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).

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): specific and strategic, measurable, amazing (rather than attainable), relevant, and time bound.

Consider the goals you outlined in figure 4.1. Now, use figure 4.2 and the SMART system to clarify your vision for making these goals masterful. Don’t worry about creating final gutsy goals at this point. Use this instead to think about the qualities that will make your goals gutsy. We’ll take that final step in the next section.

Figure 4.2: Make your goals SMART.

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In the next section, you’ll use your explorations in figure 4.2 to set some truly gutsy goals.

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 learn how to create high class expectations with high goals to get students to the promised land of consistent high effort. Following are elementary and secondary examples of gutsy goals as well as an opportunity to rethink your own goals and write them down. After that. I offer some examples of gutsy goals students can set for themselves.

Elementary Teacher Examples

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.

I have also heard teacher goals like, “This year, all my students will reach their potential.” Unless you have a specific way to measure your students’ potential, how would you know what their potential is? 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 just basic progress. Without very aggressive goals, you increase the likelihood for students to drop out or fail. Make your own goals jaw-dropping, amazing, and unlikely (but possible) to reach. Here are examples of teacher gutsy goals.

• A process goal: “This year, I will engage my students every nine minutes or less for the entire year.”

• A relational goal: “This year, I will learn at least three things (outside of a name) about every student, and I’ll do a One and Done (from chapter 6) with my two class leaders in the first thirty days.”

• A 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.”

Secondary Teacher Examples

If you teach at the secondary level, let your students know about your own gutsy goals. You’ll want to set goals so high that you’re unlikely to (but maybe you might) reach them. That sends a message to your students to shoot for the stars.

• A process goal: A science teacher’s goal might be to teach students how to rebuild a city from scratch when disaster strikes. A 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 relational goal: “I will complete a One and Done with one or two students in every class and do name-learning activities until every student knows every other student by first name.”

• A result goal: “I will get two years of academic progress for every year I teach” or “I will become a top 50 finalist for the Fishman Prize for Superlative Classroom Practice.”

Your Own Examples

Now that you’ve looked at some examples of some genuinely gutsy goals, use what you’ve learned so far in this chapter to lay out one of each type of gutsy goal—a process goal, a relational goal, and a result goal. Make sure each of them meets the criteria for a SMART goal. See figure 4.3. Note that, if they apply, you are free to evolve your goals from figure 4.2 (page 43), or you can set some entirely new goals. If you find yourself answering “no” to any of the SMART questions, return to figure 4.2 and keep refining until it does meet these criteria.

Figure 4.3: Your gutsy goals.

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Student Examples

Beyond the goals you set, it’s important for your students to set goals that give them ownership over their own ambitions and growth. So, after you have established classwide gutsy goals and presented them to your students (along with information about what gutsy goals are and why they’re important), it’s a great idea to have them set some of their own. Here are student examples for gutsy goals.

• A process goal: “I will read at least five pages a day and take at least two pages of notes every school day of the year.”

• A 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.”

• A result goal: “I will get an A or B in every class.”

Note that it’s important for students to share their goals with you and each other as well. To that end, pass out notecards like those illustrated in figure 4.4, and have students fill them out. Then, have them form teams of four to six peers. Each team member stands to read his or her goals. When each student has finished, the team gives a standing ovation.

Figure 4.4: Gutsy goals for students.

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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 may have trouble buying into the gutsy goals you set and those you ask them for, which is why it’s essential for you to give them 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.

Believe it or not, 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 this to you in school? I didn’t. That kind of confidence, when backed up by subsequent action, can move mountains.

Use figure 4.5 to write down your gutsy goals from figure 4.3 (page 45), and this time add in your plans for making your goals relevant to your students and how you’re going to approach achieving their buy-in.

Figure 4.5: Making your gutsy goals relevant.

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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. 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. When you have a student who experienced a failure and needs encouragement to build back up, use the worksheet in figure 4.6 to plan how you will approach him or her.

Figure 4.6: Learning from and overcoming failure.

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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 67) 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 keep 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. Every week, check in on your goal progress. See figure 4.7. For example, a student’s gutsy goal might be to finish fifth grade ready for seventh grade. On week one, he might set a micro goal to get 100 percent proficiency on assessments; for week two, he wants to be on time every single day; and so on.

Figure 4.7: Micro goal checklist.

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Remember that some weeks are dedicated to holidays, tests, or professional development, so you’ll have to include these additions in your achievement calendar. When students get questions right or reach their micro goal, make time to celebrate. For example, every time your class reaches a micro goal, pause for quick celebrations, saying, “Hey class, we did it! We are one step closer to our big goal this year.” Celebrations are important because they promote the values and standards that are fundamental to your class. Ultimately, these micro goals are about maintaining engagement, a mindset we cover in detail in part six. In particular, you’ll find even more ways to celebrate small victories and student accomplishments in chapter 18 (page 191).

As a final summation of your work in this chapter, use figure 4.8 as a combined checklist to affirm that a goal you’ve set is gutsy, relevant to your students, and has suitable micro goals.

Figure 4.8: Gutsy goal with micro goal checklist.

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Quick Consolidation: Set Gutsy Goals

Many students get discouraged when you try to put them on the path to gutsy goals. Some will interpret the roadblocks they encounter as a lack of ability. This is why you must continually build the growth mindset. If they struggle, help them uncover the false assumptions or strategies that undercut their belief in their own ability to improve. Help them grow. Higher learning requires not only the achievement mindset but also the emotional safety for a relentless intellectual curiosity. Assume the best of your students, and pursue the gutsy goals with a high expectation for mastery. With this firmly in mind, answer the following reflection questions as you consider your next steps.

1. What did you learn about the importance of setting gutsy goals that you didn’t know when you started this chapter? Why are they so important?

2. What distinguishes an ordinary goal from one that demands mastery?

3. How will you help students believe in their own ability to master the content you teach?

4. What is the role of micro goals in the mastery process? How can you set and celebrate micro goals to keep students on the path to mastery?

5. When students struggle and grow frustrated with the standards you’ve set, what will be your strategies for helping them break through these blocks?

The Handbook for Poor Students, Rich Teaching © 2019 Solution Tree Press • SolutionTree.com

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