ACADEMIC STANDARDS EVENT 1
Facilitator Guide

GOAL SETTING 101

Dear Facilitator,

Thank you for taking part in this exciting and important learning experience!

This event will focus on the fundamentals of effective goal-setting for parents and families. As a result of attending this event, parents and families should come away with a deeper understanding of:

1)the importance and purpose of Academic Standards

2)how to access basic data regarding their student’s current school performance

3)concrete strategies for setting a goal and how to support their student in achieving their goal

Please familiarize yourself with the event agenda and supporting documents on the last pages of this guide to see how the event is generally organized and where your leadership is necessary.

CLASSROOM FACILITATORS

You will support the parents in your classroom with the small-group activity around goal setting.

YOUR PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY AS A FACILITATOR IS TO:

1)Keep the conversation focused on the questions/topic and encourage everyone to participate. Please monitor the time allocated for each of the activities.

2)Engage parents in a personal and friendly way that enables them to reflect about what they want to achieve for their individual student and how they can be an active support.

BEFORE THE EVENT

Have teachers print off an individual student report from Teacher Portal. The idea is that parents will be accessing Parent Portal to look at individual student data, but in the case that they are not able to access Parent Portal, they will use these individual student report print-outs.

Also be sure to print out the Family Partner Strategies handouts for each family and the SMART Goal Planning Template handout for each family. These can be found on the Academic Standards Event page on The Commons.

QUESTIONS
If you have any questions before the event, please don’t hesitate to contact Yoni Geffen at 720-423-2287 or via email at:

EVENT OVERVIEW

The first part of this evening will be a whole-group session with parents and staff, lasting around 55 minutes. During this time, your school leader (or designated lead staff member) will be introducing the concept of goal-setting to all parents and providing them with the opportunity to engage with school-wide data.

The second part of this evening will be classroom/grade-level specific small group sessions lasting about one hour in which parents and families will gain more practice with goal setting and develop an action plan according to their individual student.

Part 1 – Whole Group Session

  • Framing
  • Introduction to Academic Standards
  • Analyzing Data through Academic Standards
  • Choosing a target area for a student
  • Setting a school goal
  • Academic Standards and setting a goal
  • Big Goals versus SMART Goals

Part 2 –Small Group Session

  • SMART Goal practice
  • Accessing Parent Portal
  • Reflecting on individual student data
  • Creating a SMART Goal specific to individual students
  • Committing to an action plan to work towards that goal (and using resources in Parent Portal as ongoing supports)

In the Small Group sessions, we suggest facilitators use resources from an organization we are partnering with called Learning Heroes. They are available in Spanish as well.

1. Introduce the Super 5 – five simple ways parents can help students have a successful school year. Read over the Super 5 tips, focusing on Tip 1—Start Smart: Stress the importance of finding out what your child is expected to learn this year.

2. (To build on Tip 1 from the Super 5): Use the Readiness Roadmap- to show parents where they can get more detail regarding what their child needs to know this year. Facilitators can model showing how to use the tool by:

-Starting from the top: Choose a grade, then choose the Grade by Grade Guide, then look at what specific skills look like on video.

-Ask parents to look up the resources for their child’s grade (as part of the session or as part of next steps at home).

-Facilitators can then scroll down the page to highlight the kinds of resources that are available. Remind families that this path can help them as they focus on theirbig picture hopes and dreams for their children.

*IMPORTANT: any agenda item that is highlighted will require you to prepare content in advance*

WHOLE GROUP SESSION AGENDA

AGENDA ITEM / SLIDE CONTENT / FACILITATOR NOTES
Slide 2. Introductions/Share-Out (5) / State your name, share a hope or dream you have for your child / Based on group size, determine if everyone shares or just call on a few.
Make the connection that families who have had a Home Visit have already discussed a hope or dream they have for their student. Encourage those who have not had a Home Visit to sign up for one and dig into this more deeply!
End by saying that hopes and dreams need to be broken down into clearer action steps so that we can work toward achieving them. We are going to be working on breaking these down today and creating goals that research shows have a higher success rate, which are called SMART Goals.
3. Objectives (1) / By the end of the session, you will be able to:
  • Explain what academic standards are and how they are used
  • Identify an academic goal for your child according to student achievement data
  • Set a smart goal for your family that will help your child progress through the school year
/ You can decide whether to read these out-loud or call on a volunteer to read.
Facilitators should stress that we will learn more about academic standards in the session but they can be thought of as learning goals
4. Why are we talking about this (2) / Reason #1: Goal setting helps students learn.
  • The research is clear: People who set goals are more successful.
  • Athletes perform better, employees get larger raises, and students learn up to 250% faster when goals are set for them – this is far more than when they are justtold to ‘do their best’.
  • Goal setting can be used for short-term and long-term goals.
  • Some goals are more effective than others.
/ Facilitator reads or calls on participant to read.
Optional: Ask for reflections on this research.
5. Why are we talking about this (2) / Reason #2: Families are crucial to this process.
  • Families are just as important to a student’s success as are schools and teachers.
  • Research shows that students with involved families earn higher grades and testscores, have better social skills, and show improved behavior.
  • The research holds true for students at both the elementary and secondary level, regardless of the parent’s education, family income, or background.
/ Facilitator reads or calls on participant to read.
Optional: Ask for reflections on this research.
6. Agenda Overview (1) / Whole Group: (55 minutes)
Introduction to goal-setting and SMART Goals
Using and analyzing data
Academic standards and goals
Transition (5 minutes)
Small Group: (55 minutes)
SMART Goal practice
Using Parent Portal data
Setting individual goals for your student / Facilitator reads agenda (30 seconds)
7. Intro to Academic Standards (2) /
  • Raise your hand if you want your student to graduate and be college/career ready?
  • Now think about if you know exactly what your student needs to do to achieve that goal.
  • Do teachers need guidelines to know what to teach so that students are on track to graduate and be college/career ready?
/ Facilitator: Since we are all here to support our students, let’s shift now to talking about how goals fit into school. My guess is that everyone in this room shares a Big Goal or a hope or dream they have for their student.
Facilitator poses these questions to the group and asks families to think about the answer to each. Emphasize that not many families do NOT know exactly what to do to work towards these goals so that families do not feel intimidated or discouraged.
Facilitator: If you do NOT know exactly what your student needs to do to achieve that goal you are NOT alone.
Option: Ask for families to share reflections or ideas to these questions.
Facilitator ends by saying Academic Standards are a key to this. They are learning goals and expectations of what students should learn and be able to do by the end of every school year.
8. What are Academic Standards (3) / Video
Reflection Questions
  1. What in your perspective are the benefits of the standards?
  2. How do these connect to the Big Goals/hopes/dreams you have for your child?
/ 3 minutes
Facilitator says: We are going to watch a short video that introduces what Academic Standards are and what role they can play.
As you watch, think about these two questions and be ready to share your thoughts.
Option:
Take 1-2 minutes to have families turn and talk to one another about answers to the reflection questions.
Take 1-2 minutes to have volunteers share answers to the reflection questions.
9. Academic Standards are… (2) /
  • Set clear goals for every stage of learning
  • Consistent and high expectations for all students across the grade level, district, and country
  • A way to break down grade level expectations and college/career readiness into skills
  • Guidance to teachers on the most important skills and concepts students should learn in every grade.
Other ideas? / Facilitator reads through overview of main point on what Academic Standards are.
Option:
Take 1 minute to ask for other ideas on what Academic Standards are.
10. Analyzing Student Data through Standards (5) / Angela is a third grade student. Below is a table with her student data from a recent assessment
Academic Standard
Content Area: Reading, Writing, Communication
Standard: 2. Reading for All Purposes / Mastery
(Out of 100%)
1.Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text / 91%
2.Determine the main idea of a text / 75%
3.Use text features and search tools to locate information / 84%
s Angela showing mastery or proficiency on the standards?
Is Angela meeting grade level expectations?
Is Angela on track to be ready for college/ career?
What should be the focus for Angela to get her on track? / Facilitator says: Academic Standards are what guides all the instruction and learning that happens in schools. We use them to be able to know here students are, to set goals for them based on gaps in their learning, and to track their progress.
Now we are going to practice by looking at some sample student data to see how it all fits together. This is just an example to practice with data.
Here we are looking at sample data for a third grader named Angela. We see that we are looking at data on reading standards, which are listed to the left. On the right side are Angela’s scores or percentages out of 100%. There is also an example of a guide to those scores in the bottom right. Let’s say she took an in-class test and these are her scores broken out by standard. 100% would mean she is completely proficient or has completely mastered that standard.
Facilitator models thinking aloud about each question:
So if the student is showing mastery or proficiency, she should be scoring 86% or above. I see that she has a 91% on ‘Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text’ so she is proficient. She has mastered that skill.
For ‘determine the main idea of a text’ I see she scored a 75%, which is not mastery and it is her lowest score.
Her score for ‘use text features and search tools to locate information’ is right in the middle and getting fairly close to proficient.
So this student is on grade level for #1, is below grade level on #2, and is fairly close to being on grade level for #3. She definitely has some literacy skills she needs to work on in order to be reading on grade level.
So we would say this student is not quite reading on grade level which is necessary to be ready for the next grade. So this student needs to focus on reading, more specifically on determining the main idea of a text.
This is the process of reflecting on the data and thinking about it to break down a larger goal into smaller pieces of things to focus on. For Angela, we can do that by saying in order to reach her larger goals and to be ready for college and career, she right now needs to really focus on being able to determine the main idea of a text.
11. Analyzing Student Data through Standards (4) / Below is more assessment data for Angela.
Academic Standard
Content Area: Mathematics
Standard: 2. Number Sense, Properties, and Operations / Mastery
(Out of 100%)
Use place value to round whole numbers to the nearest 10 or 100 / 71%
Fluently add and subtract within 1000 / 68%
Multiply one-digit whole numbers by multiples of 10 / 82%
Is Angela showing mastery or proficiency on the standards?
What should be the focus for Angela to get her on track?
How could a teacher use this data to decide what to teach? / Facilitator says: Here we have more assessment data for Angela, except this time we are looking at data on math standards.
Facilitator can then choose an option for guiding families through reflecting on the questions. Be sure to highlight the difficulty that teachers face in deciding what to to focus on for each student and how that is constantly a challenge that teachers face when thinking about individual students and their needs.
Options:
Facilitator can pose each question to the whole group and call on volunteers.
Families can turn and talk for 1-2 minutes about the questions and then share out reflections.
Suggested answers:
She is not proficient on these math standards.
Angela definitely needs to focus on math, more specifically around being able to subtract fluently and use place value to round numbers.
A teacher might decide to focus on these math skills, but the main point is that it’s really difficult for teachers to prioritize when thinking about individual students and their needs. Especially when you also think that about how all students are on different levels.
12. The Big Picture (2 minutes) / Short term Long term
SMART Goal Big Goal
Mastering a Math standard Passing Math class
Meeting Grade Level Expectations Being Prepared to
Graduate / Facilitator says: Now we have gotten a solid introduction to academic standards and how they are used so that teachers know what to teach and when.
Facilitator asks: In looking at this slide on the Big Picture, think about what the relationship is between standards and the goal setting process? How do standards fit into Big Goals and SMART Goals?
Option to ask for ideas
Facilitator says: So standards are an essential piece to goal setting in schools. They are the guiding pieces to many decisions and goal setting that happens in school. In the same way the SMART Goals break down Big Goals into something more actionable, standards break down the Big Goals of teaching like being on grade level and passing a class into something more actionable.
As a family, you will work to break down your Big Goal or hope or dream for your student into a SMART Goal by looking at data for your student.
13. Big Goals (1) /
  • Hopes and Dreams
  • Ambitious Target
  • Multi-step
  • Indicator for long-term success
/ Facilitator says:
Most of us, when we start the goal setting process, we start big. We think of Big Goals. These are like the hopes and dreams we shared at the beginning of session.
Big Goals tend to be an ambitious target, is usually multi-step, and is a longer term-goal.
Keep the hope or dream you said you have for your student in your mind, because we are going to be looking at some individual student data for your child and working backward to break down this hope or dream or Big Goal into actionable steps you can take.
14. SMART Goals (3) / S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Attainable
R - Relevant
T - Timely / Facilitator says:
In a minute, we are going to move into smaller groups and work on breaking down some of the Big Goals we have for our students and create SMART Goals.
SMART is an acronym, and I will quickly go through what each letter stands for. We will use this as a guideline when we are creating our SMART Goals today and as a way to check to make sure they are effective.
S is for specific- this is crucial when you are breaking down a Big Goal into a SMART Goal. You need to answer the Who, What, Where, When, Why, Which questions.
M is for measurable- you must be able to track progress and measure the outcome of the SMART Goal.
A is for attainable- the goal needs to be reasonable and it must be in your control to achieve it.
R is for relevant- the goal should be related to a Big Goal or hope you have for your child that it meaningful.
T is for timely- you should be able to include a time limit or deadline for accomplishing your goal.
Research has shown that using this SMART Goals outline leads to more effective goals and a much greater chance of success.
15. Big Goals vs. SMART Goals (3) / What are the differences you notice between the two types of goals?
BIG GOAL EXAMPLE / SMART GOAL EXAMPLE
I will pass all of my classes. / I will complete all assignments and study for one hour each night for the final week leading up to my final exams in Geometry.
I will make more money from my UBER driving. / I will drive for UBER for at least 2 hours each night of the weekend for the next two months and accept all requests for rides within Denver metro.
I will pass the fifth grade. / Over the next 12 weeks, I will do my homework each night and study for all quizzes and tests so that I am scoring 80% or above.
/ Facilitator says: Before we move into small groups, let’s do a quick practice to make sure we understand the difference between a big Goal or a hope or a dream and a SMART Goal.
Give one minute for participants to read through examples on their own, or you can call on volunteers to read out-loud.
Options: Families do a turn-and-talk about differences they notice then take 1 minute to share out ideas.
Call on volunteers to share noticings about differences in the whole group.
16. Plug for Family Leadership Institute / FAMILY LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE
communication
vision
values
organizing / Facilitator says: I want to give a quick plug before we transition into smaller groups for the Family Leadership Institute.
Tell parents that this event is a wonderful way for parents to further develop their leadership capacity and work with others to drive positive change in their home, school, and community. Give information for the next event.
Tell families to sign up on the sign-up sheet if interested (and pass that around).
  • Session 1: VISION - November, 3 2016
  • Session 2: VALUES - January 19, 2016
  • Session 3: COMMUNICATION - March 9, 2017
  • Session 4: ORGANIZING - April 13, 2017

16. Transition to Small-Group
(4) /
  • You will have 5 minutes to move to the classroom with the group closest to your child’s grade
  • During the second half of tonight, you will practice applying these skills for your own student using their data
/ 4 minutes
Facilitator says: Next we will transition to small groups. Families will choose a grade level of one of their children. You will be looking at individual student data for your child and creating a family SMART goal.
Display any other directions necessary to move families into grade level small groups.

SMALL GROUP SESSION AGENDA