Sunday, November 15, 2015

Chapter 4: Point to the Destination

In addition to finding the bright spots and scripting the critical moves, Chapter 4 asks us to point to the destination in order to direct the rider. To do this, the authors suggest making a “destination postcard” which shows what can be possible in the near-term future. Destination postcards should simultaneously direct the rider and motivate the elephant, which is a departure from “data-driven” goals that do not generate emotion. For example,  a teacher’s goal for her first graders was to be like third graders academically by the end of the year. Destination postcards look for a strong beginning, a strong ending, and getting moving. The middle will look different. I feel like this is very applicable to students as their journeys can be very different while working toward the same academic goals. I think the emphasis of our district on posting learning targets and making sure students know their end goal aligns with this chapter; however, while there is a clear destination in the learning target, it seems to lack the critical emotional component. For example, in kindergarten, a long-term learning target is “I can read Level D books in June.” While the direction is clear to me as a teacher, how can I make that motivational to a kindergartner? 

14 comments:

  1. The part of this chapter that I found interesting was the idea of having a black and white goal. It stated that this eliminates rationalization. I agree that a black and white goal could be beneficial in making change in the future; however, I was disappointed with the example given because in my mind change occurred but the company still failed. The goal stated that the oil company would not drill any dry holes. Even though this lead to improvement, the ultimate goal failed because they still drilled dry holes. Given my personality, I would be disappointed that I failed even though I did make improvements.
    The other part of the chapter that was interesting to me was the new leader for the Shearson Lehman's research department, Rivkin. How did this leader "win" the people over to begin to make changes? Didn't the people dislike him for the moves he made? I felt like he lacked making connections with people.

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  2. I really like the idea of the "destination postcard". It really goes along with making connections with our students - which was a goal of our district just last year. We have become so data driven - so SMART goals driven, that we have forgotten the human piece. Even when writing my own learning targets for kids, I forget the "why" and motivation. So what if they can conjugate verbs, so what if they can tell me what adjective agreement is...what is the motivation for the kids to make them want to move their elephants and keep riding with me!??? That is the part I need to remember and continually bring to the forefront.

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  3. I really liked Dawn's connection with learning targets. That was what I thought about when reading this chapter. Helping students understand the end-game allows them to assess how close to the goal they are. Dawn's point about motivation behind learning targets is well made. I think one of our challenges as educators is to find ways to hook our students and make our content important and relevant to them. I found myself, just today, starting a unit on argumentation and I asked my students how many of them had their parents tell them no recently. I explained, then, that we were going to learn how to argue more effectively with evidence. When I stated my learning target this way, they were a lot more engaged, but I find that most of the time I have difficulty connecting the learning targets to my students' lives in meaningful ways.

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    1. I too, have difficulty connecting the learning targets to my students' lives, Justin. They really don't seem to care about learning about them at 5th grade. I do take the time especially in ELA to make sure they understand them, but I'm not sure they get anything out of it.

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  4. I like the connections being made between the "destination postcards" and learning targets for our students. Learning targets are small, manageable goals that set the path for students, but I agree that my targets are lacking the motivational aspect. This chapter reminded me that motivation and emotion are huge factors in whether students will be successful or not. Setting black & white goals is helpful because it leaves no room for ambiguity or hesitation. I need to work on finding ways to make my learning targets black & white, but also meaningful.

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  5. I like the idea of the destination postcards and appreciate that they allow for each student to reach that goal in their own way. I agree that emotion and motivation are more difficult to incorporate in such black and white goals. I do have targets (short term and long term) posted in my room for my students but I find myself sometimes not making a huge deal out of them with every student, especially the long term ones. I worry that if they are not quite at the goal yet it will negate all of the growth they have made. I focus more on the short term targets as a way to increase motivation and emotional success.

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  6. The problem I had with B&W goals is we don’t teach students to take risks. I understand that B&W goals wouldn’t be used everywhere in the classroom, but I genuinely don’t want to live in a world where my students think we don’t try until we’re 100% sure it will work. There’s a reason why some math problems can be solved 5 different ways; it’s because someone refused to acknowledge the single way, and did it their own way! If we tell students their goal is to “solve this problem this way,” then we don’t get out of the box thinkers. We get unmotivated drones.

    I liked the concept of destination postcards brought up in this chapter. It helped me recognize that not everything is as black and white as we’d like it to be. I think sometimes we need to use destination postcards to motivate the Elephant and the Rider in our students. Like the text says, “Destination postcards do double duty: They show the Rider where you’re headed, and they show the Elephant why the journey is worthwhile” (p. 82). My learning targets show students where we’re headed, but they don’t necessarily motivate them to do well. To be honest, I’m not sure any kind of written goal will motivate my students emotionally. It takes time to convince a struggling reader/writer why they need to complete work, and I think some of it comes with the age. As time passes, I notice my students change their behavior regarding AIS work. Like it was mentioned in an earlier post, I think this emotional factor doesn’t necessarily need to be written into instruction via learning targets, I think if we foster an environment of trust and success, the Rider and the Elephant are more likely to work together.

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    1. Lauren, I agree with the lack of motivation that comes with the B&W goals and trying to figure out how they might be applied in our classrooms (especially in Math). Students already want us to just tell them what to do and don't want to think for themselves. These types of goals just feed into that line of thinking. I am sure there is a time and place for B&W goals in the classroom, but we also want the students intrinsically motivated to work towards goals and the best way for that to happen is for them to be invested in ones they set themselves.

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  7. The destination postcard is just another term for goal setting which I believe students have experience with. The bigger problem is follow through. They can make a goal, but they often lack the commitment and motivation to follow through independently. Often the goals have to be very short-term in order for a student to see success in the process; though, they often are still unable to follow through many short term goals to reach the final "destination" of the overall goal. That's why I agree with Lauren's experiences that motivating a struggling learner is hard to put into a goal/target/destination. The students seem to understand the goal aspect, but the emotional piece often impedes the success.

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  9. I like the connection that Kylie is making between the destination postcards and learning targets. The targets do give our students a clear way to determine if they have met the objective that day. I think the tough part does come when making them meaningful and that is where the long-term targets can be used to motivate and support our students that do not always meet the daily targets. The long-term target that we are using is based more on the characteristics of a learner and less on specific academic levels. My long term math goal for the first grade is “I can persevere through first grade challenges.” This allows the children to analyze their progress and still be proud of themselves as they work and struggle to achieve those daily targets. This chapter was very interesting and I think it reminds me that I need to support both the rider and the elephant in all of my students.

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  10. My AP Calculus students' destination postcard is to obtain college credit for at least one semester of calculus and placement in a higher level calculus course when they enter college. Their goal is to "get a 5 on 5/5" (earn a score of 5 on the Advanced Placement Calculus Exam on May 5). I like the ideas on P. 93 that you don't need to "anticipate every turn in the road between today and the destination", "Just look for a strong beginning and a strong ending and get moving."

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  11. So many interesting comments. I agree with so much of what is being said. I too, immediately thought of learning targets as being connected to destination postcards. I thought the example of the first graders was good- but I agree with Justin and Lauren. It is hard to connect these targets/goals to our students' lives. I wish it were as easy as the example of the first graders.

    I also thought the comment about our use of SMART goals makes us too data driven. However, I don't seeing us getting away from data driven instruction and goals anytime soon.

    I think Jane's AP calculus students are a good example of students that are intrinsically motivated...even though the goal is extrinsic in nature. These students are motivated to do well and succeed. My worry is that, for the most part, students have little intrinsic motivation. How do we make students want to do well in school? Justin got it with his lesson...but the challenge is how to do this all the time! Finding that "compelling destination" is tough!

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