What if you had the perfect recipe to help your students set and achieve their educational goals? Compass PD's Dr. Natalie Fallert dives into the critical world of educational goal setting, unveiling strategies to align student goals with the curriculum and creating a pathway to turn short-term objectives into long-term triumphs. Join us on this enlightening journey as we morph tracking from a mundane checklist into a poignant reflection of progress, setting a routine for students to evaluate their development.
Dr. Fallert, renowned for her impactful insights, addresses the challenge of instilling the value of goal-setting in students and managing their potential obstacles. She highlights the importance of tying screening data to goals and shares dynamic strategies to break down tests, guiding students to identify their unique patterns and weaknesses. As educators, showing our care and commitment towards students and their achievements is crucial. We empower students by connecting their goals to assessments, ensuring their progress is seen and appreciated.
In this episode, Dr. Fallert decodes the three types of goals: performance, mastery, and effort-behavior. She also introduces you to identity goals from James Clear's book, Atomic Habits - an influential element that can significantly shift student behavior and learning. Tune in for a wealth of knowledge on goal setting's impact on student motivation, engagement, and the journey toward achieving learning objectives. Let's empower our students to strive for success and exceed their own expectations.
This is an episode you will want to share with your fellow teachers!
What if you had the perfect recipe to help your students set and achieve their educational goals? Compass PD's Dr. Natalie Fallert dives into the critical world of educational goal setting, unveiling strategies to align student goals with the curriculum and creating a pathway to turn short-term objectives into long-term triumphs. Join us on this enlightening journey as we morph tracking from a mundane checklist into a poignant reflection of progress, setting a routine for students to evaluate their development.
Dr. Fallert, renowned for her impactful insights, addresses the challenge of instilling the value of goal-setting in students and managing their potential obstacles. She highlights the importance of tying screening data to goals and shares dynamic strategies to break down tests, guiding students to identify their unique patterns and weaknesses. As educators, showing our care and commitment towards students and their achievements is crucial. We empower students by connecting their goals to assessments, ensuring their progress is seen and appreciated.
In this episode, Dr. Fallert decodes the three types of goals: performance, mastery, and effort-behavior. She also introduces you to identity goals from James Clear's book, Atomic Habits - an influential element that can significantly shift student behavior and learning. Tune in for a wealth of knowledge on goal setting's impact on student motivation, engagement, and the journey toward achieving learning objectives. Let's empower our students to strive for success and exceed their own expectations.
This is an episode you will want to share with your fellow teachers!
Good morning. If you're listening to this, and it's the morning, I know it's morning for Dr Fallard andI. As we record this, I am Carrie Hepburn and the founder of Compass PD, and today we are joined by my good friend and colleague, dr Natalie Fallard.
Speaker 2:Hello, good morning, good afternoon, thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1:As a team, we sit down, we discuss the different roles within the system and what needs to be on their radars at a given time and the predictable problems those stakeholders will face. This information is based on our personal experiences and organizations and the trends that we notice in the school districts and the schools that we support nationwide. Compass PD supports our work for the podcast, much like we support the work that we do within a school district. Each part of the organization should complement, not contradict, one another. So, thinking about that complementary, we make sure that the work that we do in schools and districts is aligned with a scope and sequence of how a school year ebbs and glows. Today I'm excited because Dr Fallard is going to be sharing with you, teachers, information that we'll build on last month If you didn't get to listen to last month, go back to our podcast and today we'll build on episodes 18 and 19, where Dr Fallard talked with you all about setting up the school year with your intentional planning and creating routines in your classroom.
Speaker 1:Today we hope that you walk away with some information to set you up for success, and the predictable problems highlighted will allow you to be proactive rather than reactive. So here we are Dr Fallard, first for you. Weeks of school. Teachers are preparing for September, if they start at school in August. What should be on their radars?
Speaker 2:So I know that in our last two podcasts we talked about the goal, not goal setting, that's what we're going to talk about today is goal setting.
Speaker 2:We talked about the curriculum map, planning and setting routines.
Speaker 2:Once you're into your classrooms a couple of weeks, you really want to be thinking about how you can help your students set goals for the quarter, the semester, the year and using those goals within your class to drive your instruction and to drive your learning.
Speaker 2:So today I would like to kind of go over three things. When it comes to goal setting, I have these three little buckets. One is the why we should be doing it and what it is that you're kind of asking of us. Another would be tips that could help teachers and students create those goals. And then the last one is the importance of monitoring or tracking your progress on those goals that you have set. So if we can get started, I would love to start with the why, and of course, we always have to start with Hattie's research in visible learning. He says that self-recorded grades and student expectations has a 1.44 of exercise, so this is like crazy amount of growth, right, and he explains this as students setting their own expectations for learning and monitoring their progress, which is a fancy term for student goal setting and tracking.
Speaker 2:So I don't want to stop at Hattie, because in classroom instruction that works the CITW book and they have like a newer version and they have their older version, but they talk in here, or it provides empirical research from 16 different studies that point to one strategy that works with all content, all grade, all student populations. You guessed it, it is student goal setting and monitoring.
Speaker 2:We can add one more of the mix and it is Marzano's has the new art and science of teaching. This offers science-based strategies that motivate and inspire students. So if you literally go to that section, it says you know, we. I know that our biggest ask, especially at the secondary level, is how do we get kids to be motivated and engaged in our classrooms, and so teachers are asking for this, they're noticing it as an issue and within their classrooms, and the very first thing on the list to help with this is academic goal setting.
Speaker 2:So when we think about this research that's kind of coming from all over the place. It's saying that it is important for our kids to set goals, just as it's important for us to set goals in life. And I do have a quote from learning that sticks, which is a new book that we've kind of started reading here at Compass, and in this there's a quote there and it says learning only occurs when the learner decides to learning something. This to me is super important, that if a kid doesn't choose what they're going to learn, or why they're going to learn it, or how they want to learn it, or to what degree they want to learn it, then it's telling you right here, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:And so we want to set ourselves up for success and our students up for success and kind of put them in the driver's seat. Here's some of the why behind why we should be setting goals. So now we can move into the what. What type of goals should students be setting? And if you look at any type of educational information, there are kind of three goals that are pretty common and I'm going to add a fourth one to the mix. But the three goals are number one performance goals, and this is really like grade based. You see this, I see this a lot at the secondary level, like I want the A or as long as.
Speaker 2:I pass whatever. It's kind of that performance goal. I know that it happens at elementary but it is. It's kind of that outcome-based results. Like I wanted to say, mastery goals are a little bit more on the learning goals. Normally they're centered around course objectives or standards. It might be something like revised writing beyond simple grammar fixes to improve overall quality of writing. They fall a little bit more into digging into the content and the specific skills that you're wanting to master at that great level or content area.
Speaker 2:Then the third one is effort-behavior goals. This is those like how much time or what activities will you do to reach these goals? When I think about these are the three that you want to be looking at, and it's not saying pick one, it's not saying pick all. You have to decide within your classic which ones you want. I'm going to add one more, and I have the book somewhere on here, the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Speaker 2:He talks about identity goals in this book. Instead of it being like an outcome or performance goals, he wants you to look at something like so it was an outcome based. It might be like I want to read a book from cover to cover. He offers this idea of creating goals that change your identity. I am a reader or I want to call myself a reader. Then you start digging into well, what is a reader? What defines? Then he comes a reader or someone who reads a book from cover to cover that's a performance goal. Or it's a person who reads every day, that's a behavior goal. You change that identity of yourself and saying what would a reader do? As a teacher, you need to decide what type of goals that you want your students to create. Performance goals are easy to create and they're also easy to overlook. You may want to honor those in your class who need you to understand that they want the A.
Speaker 1:You have to hear their voice.
Speaker 2:If that kid's like I want the A, I want the A. Okay.
Speaker 2:I hear you want the A, that's one of your goals. But you want to also let them set that goal very quickly because it's pretty easy. But then make sure that you're redirecting them to be like what does an A student look like, what does it mean of an A? So that you're pushing it beyond just that letter and you're saying what are the skills that you need to master or what are the habits that you have to adopt so that you can earn that A? So, as a teacher, honor their voice and that they want the A, but constantly try to coach in and be like what does it mean to have that A? And getting them to shift a little bit to those mastery or behavior skills.
Speaker 1:Nice. I do love that you added. I love that you added the James Clear's atomic habits and the identity goals. This reminds me of one of the videos that you had done on social media about the language that we use and the importance of the language that we use so that we can see ourselves as a reader, as a scientist, as a mathematician, and just taking it outside of the classroom, I work out on tonal all the time. When you're on tonal, they call you an athlete. The shift in my thinking makes me work harder. I think, okay, athletes work hard. Then the difference in the choices that I make, when I go choose what I'm having for breakfast or whatnot I'm an athlete on tonal because they told me I was. So it plays like mind games with you. I think A is one thing, but pairing that is really thoughtful. When you think, okay, if they have to do the performance goal, then helping them think through more, what does that look like? What does that sound like? What does that feel like? I think it's really good too. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Now let's move on to some tips that a teacher could use when thinking about setting goals. A teacher the teacher must first decide what exactly you want from your students. Remember that teacher clarity has an effect size of 0.75. And yes, it is important to give kids choice, but it's okay for that choice to be like negotiated choice. If it's a reading class, let's say, they should not be setting math goals or even necessary study habit goals. They should be fairly specific to the course that you have at hand. Consider creating your own goals as a teacher for what you hope to achieve with your students. Share these with your students and then provide a list from them to choose from. If you want to create lifelong readers or strong-abid writers, those could be some of your goals. If you really broke those down and fit them into your standards. If you're an English teacher, you're going to see where a ton of your standards fit into those goals. If you can get kids to be avid readers or avid writers, I am pretty sure that they're going to get better at comprehension and they're going to get better at using language or uncovering vocabulary in their text. We know that you have to be a part of the practice in order to grow at it, any way that we can get them to that.
Speaker 2:If a teacher were to create their own goals and share those, those could even become like this overarching goal that it's like okay, this is what the teacher wants of this class. I want a community of learners. What does that look like? Then you could start asking kids to create goals that help them, help you, reach your goals. It becomes a community effort, and not just that I'm not good at this, or I need to improve it that you should also consider pulling the main course objectives for the quarter of the semester or even the course, and maybe creating a few of those that you could give to the kids and say here are the course objectives. Which one of these would you like to be your goal? It doesn't have to be something that they randomly go out of their pocket. You could give them a set list to start with. If you notice that that's too restrictive for them, you can always make it fair.
Speaker 2:But sometimes, if we throw them into the deep end of the ocean, it's hard to save them. All the starting small and figuring out what that might look like in your classroom. It is going to be imperative that you explicitly teach goal setting. Even if you think that they've done it every year up until now, or they're doing it in another class with a counselor pulled them in advisory to do it, you still need to show them what it looks like to set goals in your classroom. You might need to have a conversation with them about the difference between short and long-term goals, explaining the difference between those two, and you can still ask for both by the end of the semester a kid might want. Their goal might be to read seven books by the end of the semester. That's a long-term goal. What's the short-term goals that are going to get you there? Oh, I'm going to read 20 minutes daily. I'm going to read. Those shorter goals are going to be the ones that you're going to find success in and you're going to find celebrations, and that's going to keep the momentum going. You want to model by showing them your goals and how you came up with them. What are the shorter habit forming goals that you're going to set. If I had a classroom and I wanted to create a community of learners, then that could be my goal at the end of the semester. But I'm going to have to say what does that look like? What does a community of learners look like? I might show them it's kids, talking about text, it's eager to learn. I have this list. Then I might say this first week I'm going to try, as a teacher, to offer you guys opportunities to talk every day. That's my short-term goal for this week. Is, can I do this? Showing them how those little conversations today feed into that bigger goal at the end. And that's how you created yours, and then you can ask them to create theirs, making sure that the goals are specific and measurable. The question I would ask is is there a portrait of success? Sometimes that might be a rubric or it might be a breakdown of the actual objective that you have. It might be something that you already possess. It might be something that you have to create with your kids.
Speaker 2:If your kids say I want to be a reader, what does a reader look like Literally? They could create a progression chart that says something like A reader brings a book daily and a reader opens that book daily and a reader reads from that book daily and a reader reads multiple books in a week or whatever. So there's this progression along there and they can say where am I right now? So if I'm not a reader and I don't ever bring a book, I'm going to start right there and that might be my first goal is, I'm just going to bring a book every day, that's it. I don't even have to give that, I don't even have to look at it, I have it. It's I'm a person. I have it because it's the first step. Creating that progression, or letting your students create that progression of what this looks like then, will help them determine where they are and what goals they want to start on.
Speaker 2:Another tip I would give is figure out how to link individual goals to your group goals, and it might be, you know, if, as a teacher, I want them to be a community of learners or whatever that looks like, then each week, or check in on that, giving them that opportunity to not only say how they're attacking that goal, but how that goal is contributing to the team, because we know that on a basketball team you have lots of players. There's only five on the corner of the time, but you have kids sitting on the bench and they all are bringing something different and different levels and different expertise to the team to help the team move forward. The team's goal is to win the game, but I can't shoot. I can't dunk the ball but I can shoot three pointers. I'm not going like how do I fit into the puzzle piece of winning the game? And it could be that I'm sitting on the bench and I'm cheering on my team. That could be part of my contribution. But figuring out how do you make it part of a bigger community is going to help drive all of this in its sess, because that peer pressure is a huge effect size. Right, we just know that because that's life.
Speaker 2:And another thing to think about is focusing on growth. Of course we want them to master the skills, but when it comes to tracking and monitoring progress, you really need to focus on growth because we don't want to be the nope. It's not there, it's not yet. Or look how far you've come, because if they can just move a little bit, that's better than where they were before.
Speaker 2:And James Clear in this book. He talks about the rule of 1% and he says if you can get 1% better every day, at the end of the year you are 37% better. So I think about this I don't care who you are and in what education, how many kids have you ever seen grow 37%, right? No, I mean like it doesn't happen, right. I mean we are happy with 5% games, 10% games, but 37% is crazy, and so I even got half of it Okay. But it's that idea of like focusing on something little and you're growing, you're growing, you're growing, and that growth can also go backwards, so if you're negative, it can go in another direction. Thinking about how do I keep it positive and moving in that positive direction.
Speaker 1:I love this. And I love this because I just finished reading the 1% rule the book and he was talking about. Part of what's so difficult about goal setting and achieving goals is consistency. So we have to just be simple and be consistent. Every day we show up, every day we focus on this goal, and I thought that was just a really nice way of telling us to stop like letting all these other distractions and things pull on our time and find a way that this is our goal as a class. This is so timely, Natalie, that we're kicking off the year with this and setting teachers up for this, but consistency is key.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, keeping it like you just said, keeping it simple and very straightforward of what's something that's doable, you don't, even when they're setting those goals at the very beginning, do you want small wins, because that's going to create those opportunities for burst of dopamine and then they're going to associate that emotion with that habit.
Speaker 2:They're going to be like, oh, I can do this, and so getting them, whatever that is, those small wins are going to be really important and some kids are going to start in one spot and some kids are going to start in another spot. And if it's a reading habit you might have, some kids are easy, like I can read 20 minutes every day. But then you have other kids who they don't even bring a book. So the fact that they brought a book today, they get a high five and they get to sit there for the 20 minutes while everybody else is reading, like they might pick it up and read it, but don't hound them. Be happy that they brought the book and then next week you could say, hey, can we get the book out inside of their desk this week? That's what readers do, right? That's the next step.
Speaker 1:And it might not.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure that if they bring the book, they'll probably set it out on their desk on day two. But letting them opening the door and letting them walk through is going to be super important when it comes to this, and not pushing them because, hey, if the kid brought the book, it's better than they did the day before when they didn't have one. And so, even as a teacher, celebrate the wins. Not that well, everybody else is reading. Why aren't you reading? They're not there yet. They're not. It's not their day to walk yet. They'll walk eventually. But let them uncover it. And you know, getting them to reflect back on the, on the rubric, and they'll be like, oh, what does a reader do? Oh, they actually hold the book, they actually read it, read a page, and so one kid might be reading 20 pages, another kid could read one, but that's one more page than what they read the week before. And the last tip which is going to move us into you have to provide opportunities for them to like, monitor, track their progress, and it has to be kid driven, not teacher driven. And I'm going to say really be cautious about it being points or a checkbox. There has to be value in that, and so when we talk about monitoring, tracking, we'll dig a little bit more into that.
Speaker 2:Let's move on to monitoring and tracking. Depending on your class and the goals that you're going to be setting with your students, some of these may not be. They might be very long term goals that are at the end of the semester or even the end of the year, and that is too far of a gap. You have to make sure that you're kind of packing on these weekly and providing opportunities for them to share and celebrate or adjust their success for that goal, because if not, then they're going to forget about it and it might be something that you say every Friday. We're going to do this and it becomes this 10 minute community share with your partner and then share out and let's talk about successes. You really, in this monitoring and tracking piece, you want to be thinking about how can you build relationships with either partnerships or small groups of four where they support each other, and maybe they're all four kids working on the same goal or a similar goal, or maybe they're a group that sits together. Whatever it is, but that idea of like, if something's not working for me, I can be honest with this group and say I didn't read as much this because I wanted to or I didn't do my homework, and the group can say how can we help you Because you're part of our team and our team is trying to reach this goal, so how can we help? That's kind of.
Speaker 2:One thing to be kind of thinking about is how can you set up a routine within your classrooms where kids are checking on this goal, at least, I would say, weekly, and how are you also asking them about those goals? One thing that you could also think about and I say this with preparation and that is you could take their tracking for a grade, but it cannot be oh, did you fill up this chart? Because then it just becomes a checklist and signatures and they're faking it but maybe an honest reflection on their goals or their progress. So a kid looks and says this was the goal that I had for this week. I was going to bring my book every day. I brought it four out of the five days. The day that I forgot it, and they're very honest with that reflection. Okay, that's awesome. And if they offer a suggestion, or if their group mates offer them a suggestion and they're receptive to that suggestion, then you could say you got five points today for tracking and monitoring and self-reflecting on your goal. But let's say you have a kid who actually is doing what they're supposed to do, so they're reading 20 minutes every day. That was their goal. And they're like, yeah, I'm reading 20 minutes every day, but they're not really pushing themselves, they're not self-reflecting. You could say, well, you only get four out of five points on your goal setting because, yeah, you're doing what you're supposed to do, but how is it making you better? At like, how are you reaching that goal and so shifting it to the effort and the habits versus, did you do this or did you not? And are you providing evidence that shows, yes, I'm doing this or, yes, I'm getting better, or I didn't get better but I'm going to keep trying, or I didn't get better and I'm going to try something else? So it's not about necessarily their growth. Their growth is part of learn, fail, learn fail, try again all of those things. And that's going to take some time for teachers to sit down and wrap their brain around like, how do I support and put a grade behind us? But it is possible to do, and in the like, also in the tracking and monitoring.
Speaker 2:James Clear also talks in his book about the Valley of Disappointment. He calls it and he's got this great little visual and it's like this is what we think is going to happen. Like I'm starting here and I'm going to bring my book and read every day and my reading is going to go up and he goes that's what we think is going to happen. Well, what actually happens is we start here and there's this dip and then it goes up and he goes this dip is called the Valley of Disappointment and a lot of times people give up in that dip. They think it's not working. I need to. So there are times that it's not working and you need to change. But if you're just not sure, if it's not working or it's not yielding the results that you want, yet if it's a proven strategy oh, if I'm reading 20 minutes every day, I should be eventually getting better. Okay, that's, I need to just keep doing it. I'm just in that Valley of Disappointment.
Speaker 2:So anytime you add or change something, you might have that dip before it goes up. It's that learning curve, and don't be discouraged by that. And teach that to your kids. Explain that to them so that they don't look at themselves as failure. That you know. All right, let's. Are we reflecting on what's going on? Let's reflect enough. Have we reflected enough that we need to make a change, or is it? Are we starting to see it go up in the direction that we wanted to go to and I will say that's probably like a predictable problem, because it's most likely going to happen.
Speaker 1:For sure. It reminds me of the 1% rule that I just read and they were talking about a lot of times. People will set goals and they, you know. One of the questions that he asked in the book it was rhetorical was you know how long do you think it is? How many days do you think it is before somebody quits their goal? Like, when do they? When do they quit? And it was day two. Typically, by day two they're just like nope, day two, day three, they're out because they it's work Setting the consistency. You just have to do it and be ready that it's not going to be like instant, and so I think that aligns with his thinking. With that it's so fascinating I do want to throw in.
Speaker 2:It also reminds me of like that, starting small, that you can bring your book every day, that's, that's doable. And so I'm a reader because I wrote my book. And it gets you past that second day, that third day home and you're like, oh, I've done this, I can do. I can add one more thing to the list I can touch it?
Speaker 1:No, but it's, which goes along with his atomic habits book habit stacking.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So I feel like everyone needs to buy the the atomic habits book and read it, and then the 1% rule and then all the others that we've been talking about. I was. I was thinking really quickly about how I found some tips that I used in my classroom when it came to monitoring student goals and and I'm coming from an elementary perspective, so you know this may not feel doable for some One of the ways that I checked in on students student goals was regular conferencing, so I knew that I could make it through all of the students in my class in two weeks and that way, part of my conferencing was how are we doing on our goals, what is our goal? And I actually had notes on every student and what their different goals were in the different things. So that was something that worked for me and that was what I ended up using toward the end of my career.
Speaker 1:Early in my career, one of the things that I would do is in the morning when students walk in your classroom.
Speaker 1:They have to make lunch choice, put up their backpack, put up their library books, get all their things out, give you any notes from their parents.
Speaker 1:All of these things are kind of happening and there's about 10, 15 minutes where it's just chaos. When kids are coming in, you're trying to figure out who's here, who's not. Something that I would do is I used that kids would come in and they knew, put their stuff up, make their lunch choice, and that they would lay out their notebook, that their parents would have notes in and then stuff about their homework, and that's where their goals were. So every single morning, as they were doing their work, they would hurry up, get those procedural things done and then start reading independently, quietly, and I would go around and check every single student's notebook within 10, 15 minutes and by then every kid's in the class. Somebody's already taken attendance to the office, taken the lunch count to the office, everyone's gone to the bathroom, all the things are where they need to be, and we can immediately start class after the pledge in the morning announcement. So that was another tip that worked for me.
Speaker 2:And I think so. Yeah, using conferencing in any class. If you're conferencing with kids, you can always ask them about their goals at any age. But I love that structure that you used to help kind of stay on task with that.
Speaker 1:I think something that that does is it shows kids that A you see them, you value the goals that they're setting and that you're going to hold them accountable. Yes, so let's move into now, as we think about this time of the school year, all of the work that you've been talking to them about, about goal setting. What is the predictable problem or problems they will face?
Speaker 2:Well, I think some of them I kind of touched on is just that looking at you, know, making sure that you are setting your aside time and that you yourself are coming back to it and try not to get it to where the kids have to find value in.
Speaker 2:So that's going to be a predictable problem is how do you get them to find value in it? Another thing that a lot of teachers might be like I don't know where to start and I need something easy, in a sense. If you listen to Dr Brenner's podcast about data I don't know what number it was, it was like 21 or 22, I think but she talks about how you get the screening data at the beginning of the year. Pretty much everybody has some type of screening data at the beginning of the year. Even if you're at the high school level, you most likely have given your kids a benchmark or you could use their test from the year before. But you could use that as a way to set goals, giving the kids that, actually explaining it to them, so that they're not like my kids walk home with an eye ready for them and they are just like here and they don't even know what it means. They have absolutely no clue. And so if a kid should be able to go home and tell their parents where they fall on this, what you know, oh, I'm struggling in comprehension, or maybe the kid is doing fairly well in comprehension and they wanna continue to do well in comprehension, so we don't always have to find the deficits. Let them start with something they're good at and get better at it so that they can find some success.
Speaker 2:So use that data that you are given because you have to give that test anyways to help create some of those goals. And, if you can, also use that screener. I know that at the secondary level we used to give our kids the star test and by seventh grade they're jaded Like they're just clicking buttons. They don't care. So you question a lot how accurate the results are because a kid hasn't bought in. So if you attach their goals to that screening sheet and they're looking at it, it might reinvigorate their buy-in for that test and make it a little bit more like a game. I think that those are two things that I would. I think would be predictable problems or things to be thinking about that could dump you into this process if you've never done it before.
Speaker 1:I love the intentionality of tying them together and bringing value to that work that the students are doing when they give us their time and their effort on the assessments that they're taking, and I think it does show them that we're looking at them. A lot of times they think it's done to them and, honestly, sometimes it is, but this can be more intentional, more thoughtful and bring more effort into that.
Speaker 2:I this whole idea of like, looking at a test and assessing it and really breaking it down. This is how I tutor kids with the ACT and I just do it kind of on the side. I don't even try like I'm saying this on a podcast, I don't charge people, like I just do it because there's an easy way to do it. And literally what we do is we take, I give them the test and we go down and we analyze it, we figure out what are you doing well, what are you not doing well, what are your patterns? And then I give them choice and I say which one do you want to tackle? You need to answer four more questions to get this score. You need to answer eight more questions to get this score.
Speaker 2:And when they start doing that, I tell parents all the time like you, as a parent, can want to hire me. All they want to raise their ACT score, but they have to want it. If they don't want it, then it doesn't matter. And so and I don't even I literally I'm not joking, I don't make them do drills or anything I give them the test and I say this is what you're messing up on. And they look at it and they're like oh, and they start seeing the patterns and I go, we'll do things. Either figure out that you suck at that question and skip it, or learn how to do it. If you want to learn how to do it, I'll show you some resources in order to get there, and then immediately we go back. The very first thing that I said about that quote that if the learner doesn't want to do it and they're not going to do it, that's how they raise their scores, because they choose what they want to tackle, they learn it and then they transfer it to the test.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your time on this. It's really been incredibly valuable. I think teachers are going to walk away with a lot of excellent tips for them and easy, practical ways they can get started with goal setting.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me and letting me share my thoughts.
Speaker 1:We always love it. We love it. I want to remind everyone that Dr Fowler was here for podcasts 18, where she talked about cultivating classroom excellence insights from a seasoned educator and episode 19, embracing classroom routines for enhanced learning and wellbeing. Check those out If you haven't listened to those yet. They are very valuable and they're a great foundation to what she talked about today. Next week, I'll be joining you on the podcast and we'll be talking about calendars, communication, budgets and data, and I'll be talking about that with district leaders. So stay tuned next week for that information. Finally, if you didn't know, we have a big goal of impacting one million students learning. One way you can help us reach that goal is you can share this podcast with a fellow educator and hit the subscribe button wherever you subscribe to your podcast. Thanks so much, Dr Fowler. It was a great time. Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you.