SMART goals and the GROW model

This week, we are required to take a moment to think of an area or skill, relating to our professional lives, that we are:
1. Doing well with (and would still like to improve), and
2. Would like to improve.

Although some quite antiquated statistics are quoted by Ali Boehm at The Massage Business Mama, it now turns out to be a fictitious example. I guess to prove a point with a blatant bluff, relying on the fact that most readers won’t double-check the sources?

The reports were said to have found that:
• 84% of the graduates [at Harvard University, in 1979] had no specific goals.
• 13% had goals but had not taken the time to write down said goals.
• 3% had taken the time to sit down and write out their goals and a plan to accomplish them.

When re-interviewed a decade later, the results were no surprise:
• The 13% who had goals, were earning on average twice as much as the 84% who had no specific goals.
• The 3% with clear, written goals were earning on average ten times as much as the rest of their classmates.

The decisive question asked of the students listening to the presentation: “Do you think that maybe being a part of the 3% that take time to write out goals might set you apart from your competitors in business? Not to mention the effects it could have in your personal life…”

Sounds good! But… the figures and the studies are “fake news” – and so old they are not even “news”. I was intrigued that 1979 was a very old study to use as an example. Supposedly, that 1979 Harvard University study interviewed new MBA (Master of Business Administration) graduates about the setting of career goals, and again exactly ten years later, to compare the results. Blogger Sid Savara has determined that, prior to this, the same statistics and findings had been attributed to an even more ancient (1953) Yale University goal-setting study. Neither of these goal studies actually occurred.

Savara sums up thusly: “The moral of the story: Don’t believe everything you read online. Nonetheless, the initial advice I put forth is still sound – write down your goals!

So, now to print out a template for my Strength-based and Deficit-based SMART Goal Components, and fill it out… I shall return.

LATER:

Mmmmm. I am definitely not enjoying tackling these goals on my own. I find goal-setting to be very challenging. In education circles, I have been involved in formulating SMART goals for primary schools and while serving on various professional committees, but most times we have brainstormed and discussed our goals in small groups, and then larger groups, until consensus is reached, with all stakeholders having a chance to contribute.

My Strength-based SMART Goal must be Strategic, Measurable, Attainable, Results-based/Research-based and Time-bound. The obvious one is to complete my current course, which will involve a Remedial Clinic next term (condensed to respond to lost time over the current pandemic situation) with the prescribed number of massage sessions, with a passing grade and satisfactory supervisor feedback, by the end of September 2020.

My Deficit-based SMART Goal must also be Strategic, Measurable, Attainable, Results-based/Research-based and Time-bound. Through the readings I have done this week (discussion and links in my next blog entry), it seems inevitable that my goal needs to be extended beyond my customary brisk daily walk. I will compile a plan of essential strengthening and stretching exercises, complete them every day, in two 15-minute sessions (which is almost 30 minutes more stretching than I currently do), mark each session on a calendar, completed at the end of June 2020. (This will allow for a reevaluation and another plan put into place for the end of September 2020.)

I now come to the GROW Model.

1. Choose your GOAL!
• Select one of the goals you set earlier using the SMART criteria to work on in this exercise. What is your chosen goal?

It seems obvious that a plan for regular strengthening and stretching exercises is what I need to put into place, not that it thrills me. I know that physical exercise (except walking) is something that I have always avoided.

2. Is your goal REALISTIC?
• Explore this question further. Why have you not already reached your goal?

Regular physical exercise comes with plenty of baggage from my childhood and teenage years. My Dad was a first-grade cricketer and talented in several sports, so I often felt I was a disappointment to him. PE was one of my least desirable activities in teaching, too. I often escaped it as a teacher-librarian, but not always. It’s really just not me. But I can see that regular strengthening and stretching exercises will be a preemptive insurance against injuries, and a way to keep my new career active and less difficult.

• What has been stopping you from reaching it?

Lack of discipline, forgetfulness in performing tasks I do not find enjoyable, procrastination, other priorities have been more urgent…

• Where are you now in relation to the goal?

After some research and reading this week, I have certainly found some compelling arguments for getting my act together.

• Do you think the goal is achievable for you?

Yes, but it will be interesting to see if I end up enjoying following a routine. Last time I felt longterm benefits and self-satisfaction from regular exercise would have been… 1972. (I must tell that story some day. It’s hilarious.)

• Do you know anyone who has already achieved a goal similar to yours? What can you learn from them?

Mmmmm. No one coming from my particular anti-sport stance. I shall have to think about this question.

• What have you already tried and what could you do better?

Over recent years, I have managed to keep to a fairly strict routine for daily physical exercise in the form of brisk walking. It needs to be extended to include complementary strengthening and stretching. The old reliable diet plans are not working the way they did in the 90s, though, and I get quite discouraged, having already given up many “sometime foods”.

3. What are your OPTIONS?
• What could be your first step towards fulfilling your goal?

I need to research and create a list of appropriate strengthening and stretching, and do them twice a day. My lecturer has been adding videos of such exercises to the Endeavour College Facebook page.

• What do you think would happen if you took this step?

My body would start to feel positive benefits. And that would be motivating to continue.

• Are there any obstacles to you taking this step?

Procrastination.

• Are there also other options for moving forward?

Now that pandemic lockdown restrictions are being lifted, I could could contact a friend who does running as a series pastime for some encouraging and mentoring.

• How would these make you feel?

I would hope for a bit of an endorphin rush as the calendar days get checked off, or when boasting to my runner friend about my progress?

• Which of the options that you have explored do you feel ready to put into action?

My lecturer has uploaded two stretching videos so far. I have watched them, but only followed one of them a few times.

4. What is your WAY FORWARD?
• Now that you have gone through your options you can set up your “game plan” which will act as a framework to implementation. It can be as simple as – Step 1… Step 2… Step 3…, etc. (Be sure to review regularly to keep on track and make adjustments as needed.)

Gosh, no excuses now, huh?

As mentioned above, some links to my lecturer’s first batch of stretching and strengthening video clips from Endeavour College of Natural Health’s Facebook page:

• “Desk exercises with Anthony Turri” video is HERE.

• “Bad posture busting exercises for the upper body with Anthony Turri” video is HERE.

Made environments – information

This term, Stage 3 students will be completing a collaboratively-taught unit of work in science on Made environments – information, with particular emphasis on early and modern communication devices, types of codes, digital citizenship and eSafety. This week, the students completed a pre-test survey sheet from the SLIM toolkit (Guided Inquiry) to provide some baseline data, both qualitative and quantitative. We also revisited the Orbit interface of our OLIVER library system to familiarise the students with its capabilities.

We aim to communicate our cumulative findings as entries on a blog, which can be shared with each class and beyond the school.

Coincidentally, today is International Safer Internet Day 2018. “Celebrated globally in 130 countries, Safer Internet Day is coordinated by the joint Insafe/INHOPE network, with the support of the European Commission, and national Safer Internet Centres across Europe.” This year’s SID theme is “Create, connect and share respect: A better internet starts with you”.


1.1 – Stone Age to Modern Age – evolution of communication


What is communication


16 famous logos with a hidden meaning (that we never even noticed)

Addressing English outcomes in library lessons

Today, I want to explore with my teacher colleagues the upcoming National Simultaneous Storytime picture book for 2018, Hickory dickory dash by Tony Wilson & Laura Wood, and how it fits into our existing K-2 literacy cycle, and how it can address English outcomes for Stage 2 and Stage 3 students (see Objective C).

English K-10 syllabus outcome (From NSW Education Standards Authority, NESA):


English Objective C
English Objective C

We will also briefly discuss:

* aspects of Guided Inquiry activities for Stage 2 and Stage 3, team-taught, library lessons this year (Note: units use the KLA’s own syllabus outcomes plus related English outcomes)

* revisit the concept of pre-, mid- and post- surveys for students (from the SLIM toolkit) to collect both qualitative and quantitative data (action research)

* some possible strategies for improving student attitudes and successes with longer form fiction, such as novels (see Objective D).

English K-10 syllabus outcome (From NSW Education Standards Authority, NESA):


English Objective D
English Objective D

OASIS searching:



Searching the library catalogue in Oliver


Students searching with the Orbit interface in Oliver

Light me up

This term, Stage 3 students are studying the Physical World in Science & Technology. In the unit, “Light me up”, activities concerning electricity will be done in classrooms and activities concerning the properties of light will be done in the school library.

To introduce the “light” concepts (including shadows, absorption, reflection, refraction, transparent/opaque/translucent, researching with secondary sources about reflection/refraction science understandings, discoveries and/or inventions, such as mirrors, magnifiers, spectacles and prisms, that directly affect people’s lives), here are some Youtube clips that may prove useful.


Shadow | The Dr Binocs Show | Educational videos for kids


Why do we have shadows?


Science – light – shadow – Advanced – English

Research projects: Progressing with Oliver and collecting evidence

At Penrith Public School, the transition to Oliver (from OASIS Library) and the students’ interface, Orbit, had to be delayed slightly due to long-service leave. It has been a very busy year: in addition to volunteering to be a Lighthouse School – demonstrating implementation and integration of Oliver through action research – we have been celebrating our school’s Sesquicentary celebrations. We have also been adapting from a complete Collaborative Planning, Programming and Teaching Program (CPPT) K-6 to the teacher-librarian providing one hour of Release-From-Face-to-Face (RFF) teaching for each class teacher.

Despite these hurdles, I am committed to continuing to involve most Stage 2 and Stage 3 students in the Guided Inquiry approach and collecting data on student learning with the tools of evidence-based practices.

Because the RFF program had to commence in Week 2 of Term 1, and it was not yet decided on just when the Oliver transition would occur, it was essential that I continue to collect quantitative and qualitative data using the SLIM tool kit survey forms (School Library Impact Measure, designed by Todd, Kuhlthau & Heinström, 2005). I highly recommend the collection of such data for all Guided Inquiry activities.

SLIMtoolkit
^ SLIM toolkit template (Todd, Kuhlthau & Heinström, 2005)

Surveys (as adapted for each unit from the template) are routinely filled out by students at pre-, mid- and post- intervals, even if not all data is tabulated immediately. I know that some teacher-librarians prefer to use an abbreviated survey (the so-called “Skinny” toolkit, as adapted by Lee FitzGerald and others), I do like to have all the data on hand simply because one often doesn’t know what evidence might be required/requested in the future.

For the two Guided Inquiry units started earlier this year – Stage 2: Built environments (science & technology) and Stage 3: Global connections (HSIE) – it became obvious, but too late, that the best way to integrate an introduction to Orbit would have been when locating relevant websites for research. By the time Oliver had arrived at Penrith PS, we unfortunately had already progressed past the Initiation and Selection stages of Guided Inquiry. (For the next time these units are taught, I need to ensure that all of the new and useful websites we found the hard way are represented in the new catalogue, so that students will achieve scaffolded success in their early searches).

For the purpose of today’s presentation, I am drawing my examples of a previously-taught Stage 3 unit, Endangered animals, for which a full set (pre-, mid- and post-) of survey responses is already available.

SLIM1
^ Question 1 responses (Click on the image to download)

SLIM2
^ Question 2 responses (Click on the image to download)

SLIM3
^ Question 3 responses (Click on the image to download)

SLIM4
^ Question 4 responses (Click on the image to download)

SLIM5
^ Question 5 responses (Click on the image to download)

Above extracts (pp 31-33) are as featured in McLEAN, Ian. ‘Research columns: Taking the plunge: Guided Inquiry, persuasion and the research river at Penrith Public School’ in Scan 30(4) Nov 2011, pp 26-35. (Stage 3 students used a weblog to showcase their learning journey in Guided Inquiry, and to share their persuasive multimedia slideshows on endangered animals with the extended school community – and beyond. This action research paper is peer reviewed.) Download the whole article as a PDF from HERE, courtesy of NSW DoE’s School Libraries & Information Literacy.

Todd, R.J., Kuhlthau, C.C. & Heinström, J.E. (2005). School Library Impact Measure: SLIM: a toolkit and handbook for tracking and assessing student learning outcomes of Guided Inquiry through the school library, Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries at Rutgers University (CISSL), New Brunswick, NJ.

* Banks PS teacher-librarian, Julie Grazotis, has a wonderful ClassMovie video clip about their Oliver journey HERE. Other links to local preliminary Lighthouse School Library System projects are HERE.

Federation in Australia: Stage 3’s political cartoons

Stop the presses!

Traditionally, a newspaper’s political cartoons are created close to deadline.

Congratulations to our Stage 3 students, who rose to a unique occasion. Following our intensive investigation into Democracy and Federation in Australia (HSIE unit), I challenged them to break into pairs and, armed with just a black felt pen, a piece of paper and heads full of concepts and ideas, to create a political cartoon in just 20 minutes. No pencils or erasers permitted.

Federation political cartoon

Our complete Flickr slideshow is HERE.

Building and bridges for Stage 2

Our Stage 2 students are about to commence a Guided Inquiry science & technology unit on “Buildings and bridges” (Built environments strand). It’s part of a two-year cycle, so the first thing I did was go back through the blog to see what online resources I used last time.

Although I was responsible for developing field knowledge last time, the emphasis was on HSIE (Human society & its environment), but some of the Youtube clips on Introducing British colonisation will be very useful.

Some excellent footage of the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney’s CBD:


Queen Victoria Building, Sydney

Interesting to see an outsider’s view of the Sydney Opera House:


Sydney Opera House – Great Attractions (Sydney, Australia)

Supplementing this material will be the Flickr slideshow I created of local bridges two (or three?) cycles ago. How time flies!

Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney Harbour Bridge and other bridges

As with last year’s Guided Inquiry units, the brief clips will be discussed and consolidated after considering the students’ “Plus, minus, interesting” matrices, which will encourage/develop some note-taking skills.

Back to Antarctica

Antarctica icebergs

Stage 3 students will be undertaking a Guided Inquiry exercise this term on the topic of Antarctica. For most classes, the science & technology aspects will be part of the work taught by Ms Stockton, the RFF (Release-from-Face-to-Face) teacher, so the library sessions will emphasise the achievement of HSIE (Human society & its environment) outcomes, and will complement the field knowledge being developed in S&T.

The following useful resources were invaluable the last time the curriculum cycle visited “Antarctica”.

Antarctica (Flickr slideshow), images courtesy of Mrs Coote’s brother

Introducing Antarctica (Youtube clips)


Mawson 100421 around station

Antarctica: Being there (TaLe)

As with last year’s Guided Inquiry units, the brief clips and links will be discussed and consolidated after considering the students’ “Plus, minus, interesting” matrices, which will continue to develop the students’ note-taking skills.

More, more, more!

Here are some more Guided Inquiry Endangered animals (Stage 3 science & technology); three more of the students’ digital slideshows have now been uploaded to the world.


by Monica, Jacob & Caleb


by Zain, Will & Rhianna


by Jayde J., Madilyne & Ben

Enjoy! Share! And please feel free to comment. More slideshows will appear as the term comes to a close.

As mentioned previously, just a few points to consider with Photo Peach: Use it as judiciously as you would a series of Youtube clips. Don’t permit students to do open browsing; Photo Peach is a Web 2.0 facility that is open to anyone, and the slideshows are “unrated”. Also, if you notice that new comments have been added to a slideshow you’ve made, please preview the slideshow again before using it with students so you can monitor (and moderate/remove) unwanted comments. (Or close off comments altogether.) Consider a subscription to Photo Peach, which enables you to add your own or Creative Commons music, a wider range of transitions, and the capacity to download slideshows to your hard drive, web space or a CD.

Guided Inquiry – ongoing thoughts

On nswtl listserv this week, some teacher librarians raised the question of “Creative Commons” sections of photo gallery sites, such as Flickr and Google Images, and how they are usually blocked to our students by the DEC firewall because there’s simply no way to police the images and ensure that students won’t be exposed to unsavoury images during a lesson. I’d already been milling some ideas in my head and thought I’d transfer them to here as well.

It’s important to keep child protection in mind with ICT. Parents will not tolerate students discovering inappropriate digital images during lesson time, and an open search through Creative Commons may well bring that situation to a head. And too often. My interpretation of “responsible downloading” of images in the K-6 environment is: I use Flickr and Google Image sites with K-6 students to model the search on the IWB, or to a small group clustered around a monitor screen, and we search under my teacher-level username and password. Preferably, I test the searches beforehand.

Even then, I once had a class of Stage 1s discover, during an innocent (and pre-tested) image search on “cats”, an unexpected photograph of a startled cat pencil-sharper, with a pencil in its bottom. It caused great hilarity on the day, but it was a reminder that even a well-rehearsed search can go wrong – because new images are added to Flickr and Google Images every minute of the day. And my search-gone-wrong could have been so much worse.

Guided Inquiry (ie. Ross J Todd & Carol Kuhlthau) would say that any assignment which leaves students no option but to breach copyright is a poorly developed assignment in the first place. Not too much deep knowledge will be evident in a student’s supposedly-original production that features only cut ‘n’ paste text from websites and/or stolen, uncredited images from Google. The situation really isn’t that different since hideous “projects on cardboard” were invented way back in the 60s? (Earlier?) In those days, students used to cut images out of the school’s encyclopedias – and then photocopiers were invented and suddenly students were able to colour over b/w images they stole and somehow make it all better.

If the research question is designed correctly, it can’t be answered by stock text and images. The researched material also needs to be marked and approved by the teacher before final products are created, by which time any plagiarism opportunities should have been eliminated or made redundant (or avoided in the first place).

The students who tend to use the Internet responsibly aren’t likely to plagiarise unless their assignments stymie them into doing so. I’m deep into Guided Inquiry with Stages 2 and 3 at the moment and, as their storyboards and oral presentations take shape, there won’t be anyone feeling the need to steal other people’s information. If anyone does decide they need a particular existing image, then we’ll do a modelled search and find the right one in Creative Commons – under my username and password.

It’s hard going, but it’s working! Guided Inquiry Endangered animals (Stage 3 science & technology).