The process of creating SMART goals for the new teacher evaluation system has been challenging and frustrating for the teachers at my school, and I’m sure many others, over the past few weeks. It surprises me that with all the amazing, shared content in the teacher blogosphere, and just Google in general, that there is such a lack of SMART math teacher goal examples. One of my administrators suggested that educators may be hesitant to share their goals since the evaluation tool is so new and no one wants to be criticized. However, I’d love feedback, any feedback, on my student learning SMART goal:
- During the 2012-2013 school year, I will implement appropriate differentiated interventions so that each term 80% of students with a grade lower than 70 on the progress report will raise their grade by at least 10% on the following report card.
My goal corresponds with the rubric indicator, Adjustment to Practice. The idea for this goal stemmed from an achievement tracking form that my team and I began filling out after the midterm progress reports were distributed each term. See below.
I identify the students who received a D or F on the progress report and make a list of each student’s identified learning needs. Then, I decide which interventions I think would work best to help the student bring up his/her grade. My team made a list of the needs and interventions so that we would be consistent using the same terminology.
Identified Learning Needs: Homework Completion, Assessment Preparation, Project Completion, Classwork Completion, Class Participation, Cooperative Learning, Attendance
Interventions: Student/Teacher Meeting, Daily Agenda Use, Contact Parent, Weekly Progress Reports, Contact Administration, Teacher Check In, Extra Help Sessions
Making this document really helps me to focus on the students and what I can do to help each one succeed. At the end of the term I fill in their final grade and whether or not I actually used the intervention. In the notes section I keep track of individuals (parents, guidance, administration) that I contact for additional support. I decided to turn this into my SMART goal because I feel it has so much potential. I was using it before, but not to the best of my ability. Now I’m going to add a column titled “Goal” next to the progress report grade. It will give the student and myself a target. I’m hoping that a student with a 60, who sees a new goal of 66, says, “That’s still too low. I can beat that.” Ideally I would love for students to improve a whole letter grade by the end of the term.
Growing Exponentially 