Fostering SMART Goals in Your Students
A Teacher's Guide to Implementing Goal Orientation
Measureable.
Motivation energizes, directs and sustains behavior; it gets people moving, points them in a particular direction, and keeps them going.
Goal Orientation theory examines the reasons (motivation) why students engage in academic work.
Dweck and her colleagues indicated that students who hold incremental beliefs about intelligence (they believe that intelligence is modifiable) tend to adopt mastery goals. In contrast, students who hold entity theories of intelligence (they believe that one's intelligence is a fixed entity that can not be changed) tend to adopt performance goals (Ormrod).
Mastery goals: a desire to acquire additional knowledge or master new skills
Performance goals: a desire to present themselves as competent in the eyes of others
Goal Theory: Mastery and Performance Goals
Goal Theory: Mastery and Performance Goals (An Interview with 3 Students)
Suggestions for the Classroom
Mastery goals are the ones most likely to lead to effective learning and performance over the long run
Teachers should:
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Show how mastery of certain topics is relevant to students long-term personal and professional goals.
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Communicate the belief that effective learning requires exerting effort and making mistakes
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Give students short-term, concrete goals (proximal goals) towards which to work; identify goals that are challenging yet accomplishable with reasonable effort
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Ask students to set some of their own short-term and long term goals for learning
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Provide regular feedback that enables students to assess their progress toward goals
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Offer specifc suggestions about how students can improve
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Give praise that focuses on mastery of content rather than on comparison with classmates
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Encourage students to use their peers not as reference points for their own progress but rather as a source of ideas and assistance (Ormrod, pg. 352).
