When I approach the topic of goal setting with my mentee I want to be both honest and hopeful. As I indicated in my blog post, goal setting can easily become yet another hoop that we as educators are asked to jump through. I can recall many times in my career where I’ve had to go through the motions and participate in the tedium of various professional obligations. Trainings that are disconnected from our day to day teaching and initiatives that comes and go are a frustrating but constant reality of education. Goal setting is another of these predictable tasks, but one that we can leverage to advance our library programs. I will be honest in stating that we can’t escape professional goal setting, but share my hope that our professional goals, when supported by quality standards, can benefit ourselves professionally, our students, and our programs.
I plan to advise my mentee to allow the AASL Standards to inform and drive their professional goals. This task feels overwhelming and daunting, the standards are vast. My recommendation will be to choose one of the six Shared Foundations upon which to build their goal. As I begin to reflect on my own goals for this incoming school year, I have an idea of which foundation I will focus on for my own goal. I will pause before sharing this information with my mentee, as I am aware of my need to wait and listen to my mentee’s thoughts before approaching with possible solutions. I will therefore be prepared with examples and ideas to share, but will wait until my mentee asks for this information. For the purpose of this assignment and to get myself prepared for the mental task of blending AASL Standards with professional goals, I will model creating a SMARTIE goal that is rooted in an AASL Shared Foundation. I will pose different questions for each element of the SMARTIE goal that can be applied to other goals that my mentee could take into their own work. I would advise my mentee to take at least 4-6 weeks in their library to get familiar with the collection, the curricular needs, the infrastructure in place (physical space, technology, hardware & software, etc.) and the needs of the patrons and community. Different schools have different timelines in place for completing goals, so I will urge my mentee to take as much time as possible to be acclimated to the library before deciding on a goal. When they are ready to make a goal, I will use the following process:
Step 1: Identify one Shared Foundation to use for your goal
*modeling/think aloud/evidence I will share to support my own goal:
My 2021-2022 goal is going to be rooted in the Curate Shared Foundation. I’ve spent a lot of time this sumer completing a full inventory of our collection and this work has me excited to dive deeper into our collection and how it serves our school community. The Curate Foundation covers a lot within the library, and it lends itself well to my focus on the resources our library offers.
Step 2: Narrow focus to define goal
*modeling/think aloud:
Now that I know I want to focus on the collection, I need to narrow this focus so that my goal can take shape. Our collection is vast, so for this year my goal is going to focus on digital resources offered by our library. During the 2020 school year these resources were heavily used and helped us understand just how essential digital resources are. Some areas I want to consider going forward with understanding our digital resources are:
Are they being effectively utilized?
Do students/teachers know how to access them?
Do we have resources to support all learners?
With these questions in mind I can allow my goal to take shape: “Are the library’s digital resources effectively meeting the needs of the community?”
Step 3: Align the goal with the SMARTIE elements.
*modeling/think aloud:
Specific: I focused my goal from the entire collection to just the digital resources.
Measurable: I can track visitation for some resources and can use google forms or survey data for users for other resources.
Ambitious: The library currently offers 7 digital resources to our pk-8th grade school. It will be a significant undertaking to study how these current offerings serve the population and what changes could be made to better suit our needs.
(Side note, I’ve seen different words representing A in the SMART/SMARTIE acronym, and I think I would encourage my mentee to use Attainable or Achievable, because I worry that Ambitious further supports toxic grind culture, which is alive and well in education, a profession that thrives on the unpaid labor of mostly women. Sorry to get up on my soapbox just now, but I found myself really triggered by the word Ambitious!)
Relevant: After a year and a half of virtual and hybrid learning there is an urgent need to ensure that we have the tools in place to offer quality virtual learning experiences and resources.
Time Bound: I will set timelines for progress toward this goal, for example: “By November all students will successfully be able to log into their Sora accounts” or “By December all middle school students will know how to cite resources in World Book.”
Inclusive: I will meet with special educators and service providers to ensure that all students have access to digital resources that meet their needs.
Equitable: I will review our current digital resources with a critical lens to see that diverse viewpoints and perspectives are represented accurately. I will also consider what barriers to access exist in our current system that may prevent students from fully accessing resources while others may have an advantage.
My school district offers some great questions for teachers to consider when writing SMART goals. I plan on sharing this document with my mentee to help them reflect on their goal.
Step 4: Align goal with AASL Domains & Competencies.
My goal is set within the Curate Shared Foundation, so now I need to consider how the Think, Create, Share and Grow competencies will drive my instruction.
Think: Create engaging, grade appropriate lessons introducing digital resources, evaluating sources and comparing library databases vs. generic google search, etc.
Create: Offer opportunities for students to engage in their own research on a topic of their choosing while directing them toward resources that will help them find useful information.
Share: Teach students how to accurately cite information found across multiple sources and Invite students to share their learning with the school community and beyond
Grow: Offer students opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge by supporting others. Older students could gather appropriate information or sources for younger students, or could help other students begin to access resources themselves.
Step 5: Align goal with local initiative, district/state standards.
My school district requires that our goals be connected to our district’s continuous improvement plan (CIP) as well as use the 5D Teaching Rubric for Instructional Growth to measure our own progress. I don’t know what will be expected of my mentee, but for this element of goal setting I plan to be honest and let my mentee know that these standards and initiatives are often very broad and that we can connect any quality goal to their elements.
*modeling/think aloud:
My own goal of evaluating digital resources can fit within the first dimension of the 5D rubric, Curriculum and Pedagogy: CP 1- alignment of instructional materials & tasks, but it could just as easily fall under the 5th dimension, Professional Collaboration & Communication: PCC1- collaboration with peers and administration to improve student learning. Similarly, my goal could fall under the Engaged & Inspired Learners, Instructional Excellence, or Opportunities to Learn elements of our CIP. I will communicate to my mentee that the SMARTIE elements of their professional goal are more meaningful than the connections to greater, outside initiatives.
Step 6: Progress monitoring.
Now that the goal is created, aligned with a variety of standards and initiatives, we begin to execute it and need to routinely monitor for progress. The Time-Bound element of the SMARTIE goal will give us a framework for staying on track, but we should also monitor our own progress with our own teaching. I appreciate the 5 Dimensions Teaching Rubric, because it allows me to self assess and hopefully move myself toward the more effective side of the continuum. I would encourage my mentee to routinely self assess using whatever system for evaluating their district follows. It will also be helpful when reflecting at the end of the year to be able to draw from prior self reflections throughout the year and see growth.
Though these steps are specific to my sample library goal, I am hopeful that they are transferable to any setting and could be easily changed to fit within the requirements of any school district regardless of the evaluation system they use. The process of identifying, narrowing, aligning and monitoring should be applicable to professionals with different requirements. I am optimistic that these steps will be helpful in supporting a new librarian create goals that will advance them professionally as well as improve outcomes for their students and communities.
Comments
Post a Comment