Purpose Teaching | Measurable Goals

Photo Credit by Marvin L

“Action is the real measure of intelligence” Napoleon Hill

Stressed Out K – 12 Education Series 2.5

Commit to the Process

Before looking closer at the science of goals, I need you to commit. Commit to staying the course and eliminating the very idea procrastination. Basically I’m asking you to move your feet. As a new teacher you will face obstacles that may send you home in tears, screaming all the way up the Lodge Freeway. So, cry it out, but commit to clearly identifying the problems and creating aggressive action plans to make significant changes in the way you deal with classroom issues. Don’t just stand there waiting for something to happen or worst than that looking the other way as if you don’t see the that elephant dropping those damn turds all over the place.

One thing I had to realize early on was creating effective goals could not be accomplished by cramming the night before like some of us did in undergrad. You’re in the real world now and half stepping will kill your career by strangulation. The business of building undeniable confidence to achieve your goals begins with understanding what’s most important. I can’t say it enough. You must identify what’s most important for your students and for you. Sometimes that can only be achieved through extensive interviews with a bunch of people as mentioned in previous blog post.

Measure Against a Known

The next step after creating specific goals is to make them measurable against something you already know the measurement of. What am I talking about? I mean to make your goals along side of things with size, depth, and volume like a calendar, a grade book, or previous accomplishments. Sometimes you may need to measure against someone else’s goals just to get started. I have to caution you to use comparison goal setting with a dose of maturity though. There are to many unknowns on that playground, you can get sucked into somebody else’s school employee drama real easy. But if you have to measure that way to gauge an idea of what you’re up against, have at it for a quick minute then back off and create tailored goals to meet your own professional needs.

Basically you’re wasting time writing goals if you haven’t added a measurable clause. Measuring your outcome is the only way to know where you stand. I know you already know this, but sometime we forget the basics. Allow me to engage you. Suppose you have a goal to increase customer services provided to your students in the area of teacher to parent network, a measurable goal looks like this:

I will increase my telephone contact with parents by 50% (.50) this week (1).

Now if last week your connect rate was 4 household contacts or 2% out of a total of 200 students your formula would be:

4 X .50 = 2, So that means you add the extra 2 calls onto the 4 to equal 6 household contacts for this week (1).

You should have some success with that goal so carry it over to the next week (2).

6 X .50 = 3, your new goal is an extra 3 calls onto the 6 to equal 9 household contacts for week (3).

Keep this going until you’re at a rate of about three contacts a day and they don’t have to all be phone calls. Some of the contacts can be emails, text messages, tweets, or old school face-to-face connections. You may not want to add them onto your Facebook network. LMBO. Be creative and increase your goals effectively by making them measurable. It doesn’t hurt to have someone hold you accountable either. Be consistent. Keep climbing and keep the faith.

Please comment and share to my Asphalt Check Blog on how adding measurable goals have enriched your goals or not.

This is a new series called Stressed Out K – 12 Education. Over the next several weeks we will explore classroom issues surrounding special needs, at-risk behaviors, student – teacher and teacher – parent relationships, and much more as it relates to reducing stress created from educational systems, narrow minded thinking of difficult colleagues, and the headaches of some one else’s undisciplined kids.

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Copyright © 2009 | LaRon A. Carter “The Guest Teacher”