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The Power of Setting Goals

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Happy New Year! As we roll on into 2018 I hope this post finds you doing well. I hope you had time to relax and reflect over the break. If you’re like many high-achievers you at least briefly considered making some sort of New Year’s resolution, pledge, vow, or goal, even if it was just in your mind. Whether you’ve made new goals for 2018 or just resolved to follow through on goals you made last year (like me resolving to post more on this blog!) I hope that at least one of those goals is something professional in nature. Whatever your goal(s), here are some ideas on how to help you follow through: Follow the SMART framework: A whole post could be done on this point alone. Is your goal specific and measurable (e.g. “Do quick formative checks with students three times per period.” vs. “Do more formative assessment.”)? Is it attainable ; is it within your power to accomplish within a reasonable amount of time? Is it relevant ; is it a goal worth working toward? Is it timely
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The Right Way to Help

In a recent episode of Freakonomics Radio , one of my favorite podcasts, host Steven Dubner discussed the the findings of a study about mentoring called the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study . The study separated over 500 boys between the ages of 5 and 13 into a treatment group and a control group. Each boy in the treatment group was paired with a counselor/mentor and received academic tutoring, counseling services, involvement in community programs like YMCA and Boy Scouts, among other things. The boys in the control group received no services but checked in regularly for an update. The initial results were collected and a ten-year follow-up was conducted. More information was collected by researcher Joan McCord thirty years later. McCord was able to track down about 95% of the original participants and combed through records documenting the outcomes of the boys' lives. What had been the effect of mentoring to these men? Nothing. Actually, let me quote Dr. McCord:
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As my head spins from hearing the new “Smart Snack” guidelines, collecting eclipse-viewing permission slips, and ease teacher concerns about MAP tests and EOCs for the coming year, I can’t help but sigh. We are at a fork in the road. When it comes to “solutions” to the problems facing America’s public education system, most people with an opinion seem to be coalescing into two camps. The first group supports nationally-standardized objectives. Many (but not all) of these folks would support the logical next step of nationally-standardized course curricula. The second group would like to implement more “free-market” strategies into public education, like school choice voucher programs, teacher evaluation and retention models based largely on students’ standardized test scores, and the growth of the charter school movement. While these two groups see themselves at opposite ends of a spectrum, they’re far more alike in their underlying philosophies than they realize. The
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At my house there are eight apple trees. I love my apple trees, but I have a favorite...  On the corner of my property is an average-sized tree, about twenty feet tall, lush with emerald green leaves and bursting with a heavy crop of the best tasting sweet/tart pale-green-mixed-with-bright-red Jonathan apples you've ever tasted. In the spring it comes to life from a long winter nap with an explosion of light pink flowers and from that time until the first mouth-puckering bite in September I weekly check on that tree and the crop of apples it's preparing for me. But there's something about that tree that isn't obvious to passers-by on the gravel road only twenty feet away. It isn't even obvious to people admiring its over-sized fruit as they pluck fresh apples from its branches. In fact, I didn't even notice it for months after buying the property. If you duck under the low-hanging branches and get right up against the trunk of the tree you'll notice a
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