Smart Goals

Hi! I need advice-my two smart goals for this year (in short) are 1)To gain a thorough understanding of the Fundations curriculum, and 2) my student learning goal is sight words. I am asking what kind of evidence you would suggest that I continue to collect for these two goals. I am mostly having trouble with #1. I attended a professional development training on the curriculum, given unit tests and informed instruction from there, and a few other things but I am a little stuck. For my student learning goal evidence I have: A sight word game that I use for word work, sight word baggies that they practice with, a sight word of the day, etc. I am just looking for more ideas that I can put towards evidence of completing these goals. Thank you!! I have to have 6 pieces of evidence (for each?) by February 15th. My school has not been the best at explaining this process as I believe I have posted here before. Looking for advice on evaluation evidence in general and how the process works! How are the teacher rubric and smart goals connected? Thanks again!

 

Do you by chance have any data on how many sight words your students knew in the fall? You could make a chart showing their progress from September until now.

 

Were your Smart Goals preapproved? 1. Would not have been allowed here. I guess for evidence you could log all trainings , videos you've watched, and curriculum you've studied/learned. Evidence could be tied through in your lesson plans for 1.

 

Yes they were approved by my principal

 

The wording of 1.) just makes it harder to prove imo. To me, Smart Goals are dumb fads. I moved from a pretty advanced high functioning school ( won awards and was a really great place) many yrs ago. They followed trends, but usually waited to see if the trend was going to work for them. We had massive prep time, training , and support.
The school I moved to is almost "bare bones." It is funny because the school I am in now will tell us we are going to implement some "new" ideas that will make us" better teachers" . No one gets trained. ( Well, 1 person will go to the training, and report back what they remember a month later, give you tons to read, and links to look up. You are expected to get the gist in an short portion of an inservice and learn the rest on your own time.
Smart goals appeared here a few yrs ago. A lot of people were in a panic. 1 more thing to do.... I had already done them many years ago and remembered. I was never an expert, but seemed like 1 for the moment...lol
Everything gets here 20 years late...lol ( Sometimes not that long, but I knew PBIS would come and Trauma Informed Schools afterwards from reading these boards.) Teacher's prep time is so eaten up by other expectations here that I think the P was sick of the time they wasted. So Smart Goals set everyone into a panic for a couple of years and went away w/out being mentioned again. Hopefully, they'll go away for you too soon.
Oh! If you have to do them again, make sure you write them knowing what types of evidence you can use to prove them at the same time. Like with the sight words, you can prove that easily with pre and post tests.

 

Honestly, I wouldn’t worry too much. For #1, you can add meeting notes you had with a coach about the curriculum, lesson plans, and notes from trainings/PD. My goal is about curriculum too and that’s what I’m doing.

For #2, you need a baseline. Is there a pre-assessment or data from the beginning of the year you can upload? Then upload eight word lessons you’ve used, etc. and some mid year and end of the year data.

 

yes I do!

 

Thanks! Is every school the same with the amount of evidence needed? We need 12 pieces by the end of the year. It was never explained well and I’m not sure if those pieces of evidence are all for progress towards the goals or just the standards of practice

 

Every district makes it own rules about the evidence i think. I remember asking how many pieces of evidence we needed and they would not say exactly... it was up to us. Like you, I was looking for hard numbers and got nowhere. Ask your mentor specifically how many pieces of evidence SHE collects for each of her smart goals and how many for each of the 4 standards. Maybe you'll get some answers.

 

We write goals but have never been asked for evidence. It's just one of our annual hoops, I guess.

 

I would ask your mentor or a colleague.

I did 9 pieces for my mid-year evidence but I threw some extra stuff in. I only needed about 6.

 

We don't need to do any of this. This is the first I've heard of it.

 

Yikes! I read the title of the thread and shuddered. We (my district) used to require Smart Goals. They phased out, though.

 

I think it is a Massachusetts thing.