Goal Setting Work Group

ACLS (Adult and Community Learning Services) has convened a group of eight practitioners to develop guidelines for setting goals with students. The Massachusetts ABE system strives to put student goals at its center. Programs and practitioners set goals with students in a variety of ways. It is the purpose of the Goal Setting Work Group to strengthen this work by identifying the field's best practices and by developing guidelines for goal setting processes.

The activities the group is engaging in over the course of the four month
project include:

• Surveying program directors
• Collecting sample lesson plans for goal setting with students
• Conducting a literature review

The survey revealed that many practitioners see the goal setting process as separate from curriculum and instruction. Practitioners also felt that there is presently a dual system of goal setting: one that is useful for the teacher and
student, and one that is useful for recording data in the SMARTT system. The Work Group is developing resources to bridge the curriculum gap by helping practitioners see goal setting as integrated with instruction. They also intend to propose processes that will enable goal setting to serve both the purposes of the teacher and student, and of the SMARTT system.

The survey also asked people what challenges they faced when trying to
set goals with students, and recommendations they have for overcoming these challenges. The Group intends to make recommendations regarding these challenges to ACLS.

From the review of the literature on goal setting, the group intends to develop guidelines for good goal-setting processes that programs can use as a resource tool.

One of the things that the Group feels is important is that practitioners are sure on the purpose of goal setting. Goals can be used for a variety of purposes including for the program, for students, or for funders. The Group believes that goal setting needs to be embedded in a particular context in order for those goals to be collected effectively, and ultimately, for them to be useful.

This is an exciting project that should help practitioners better identify students' goals, and learn about ways that the process can be useful to inform instruction. The Group plans to present their findings and recommendations, along with sample lesson plans for goal setting, later this spring. We're looking forward to it!

Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 15 (Spring 2003),
SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 2003.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.