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Edutopia was the source last year of an excellent class opening activity I do for a month during the school year – students take turns dedicating that day of learning to someone who has inspired them (see I Think This Is A Brilliant Idea For An Opening Class Ritual – Here’s How I’m Modifying It For Distance Learning and NEW EDUTOPIA VIDEO: “BUILDING CLASSROOM COMMUNITY THROUGH DAILY DEDICATIONS”).

Today, they published a new video sharing another very simple, but potentially very effective idea – having students identify a “daily intention” that they would like to act on during that day and their plan for doing it.  In the video, the teacher shares a slide with some broader ideas like compassion, perseverance, etc., students figure out their plan, and then share it with a partner.  At the end of the day they revisit how they did.

Obviously, the timing works better in an elementary grade, but in high school we can just have students report back the next day OR have them pick a goal at the beginning of the class and review it at the end.  I’ve often done that – and had a high degree of success – with individual students on behavioral issues (not using their phone, for example) and then using that success to help them see that they were capable of making that particular change.  However, I’ve just never though of doing it on a class wide basis.

I have had various degrees of success and failure with doing goal-setting and reviewing on a weekly basis.

But I’m going to give a try next week.

It will join the “dedication” activity that I mentioned earlier, a retrieval practice notebook task (see RETRIEVAL PRACTICE UPDATE), and a visualization process (My Best Posts On Helping Students “Visualize Success”) as different ways to begin various classes, along with other classical “Do Nows” (see The Best Resources For “Do Now” Activities To Begin A Class).

I’m adding this post to Best Posts On Students Setting Goals.

Here’s the video: