Encouraging Student Led Action & Goal Setting

My co-teacher and I really focus on taking action in our classroom and encouraging our little monkeys to take action too. To help our students recognize action and understand what it means, we use the terms Personal Action, Local Action and Global Action.

Personal Action - What can I do for me to better myself?
Local Action - What can I do for my community?
Global Action - What can I do for the world?

Action is one of the five essential elements of the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Progamme, and in my opinion, it's the most important. 

Action taken from learning can often be hard to see and assess because action taken may happen at home and on the playground and is unseen by the teachers. 

In the last few years I've come to discover that the best way to encourage student action is to provide my students with the knowledge to first be able to identify appropriate action, reflect on it, and then provide them with opportunities to share their action with others. In the past I've focused on encouraging student action separately, and student goal setting separately. This year I've found a way to combine Action and Student Goal Setting that allows me to see connections that students are making, and see action that they have taken from their learning in the context of each Unit of Inquiry (UOI) with the focus on developing the Skills, Learner Profile attributes and Attitudes of the PYP.

10 Learner Profile Attributes  

12 Attitudes

5 Approaches to Learning/Skill Sets

So just how do I encourage student action and goal setting ???

At the beginning of each Unit of Inquiry, I give my students 6 goals that as a class we will be focusing on during the course of the UOI.  These goals come from the Learner Profile, Attitudes and Skills (Approaches to Learning) of the PYP.  Ariel and I have developed our Progamme of Inquiry to focus on 2 to 3 Learner Profiles, Attitudes, and Skill sets during each of our 6 Units of Inquiry. We tried to pick attributes, skills and attitudes that we felt were needed most in each UOI and that opportunities for developing these attributes, skills and attitudes were most abundant. There are of course still learning engagements that help to develop all other learner profiles, attitudes and skills, however at the first grade level, sometimes less is more and by focusing on only 2 Learner Profiles, Attitudes and Skill sets per UOI, our students are able to develop a deeper understanding of each.

Attitude - Empathy Student Action & Goal Setting
UOI 3 Sharing the Planet

At the start of each UOI we lay out our 6 goals and then together we brainstorm a definition for each one, and what action we can take to help us achieve each of the 6 goals. 




I like to keep things simple with the little ones so we choose either 1 or 2 definitions and then post it up on Our Goals board. Students then reflect on the chosen Learner Profiles, Attitudes and Skills and self-evaluate. 

Thinking Skills - Goal Setting & Action UOI 3 Sharing the Planet

They then choose 2 goals from the 6 that they will focus on during our UOI. I usually encourage them to choose 1 goal that they will take Personal Action for to achieve, and 1 goal in which they can take Local or Global Action for to achieve. They then write their goals down on a reflection sheet that they will complete later at the end of the Unit of Inquiry. Students  also write their name and their 2 goals on a star that is put up on our Action board.

Learner Profile - Reflective Goal Setting & Action
UOI 3 Sharing the Planet

I then write their names on a yellow star next to their goals so that their goals are visible to them and we refer to Our Goals board every morning during our Morning Meeting time.

Learner Profile - Caring   Goal Setting & Action
 UOI 3 Sharing the Planet

Action Star Board

Every morning I ask the students to share how they took action to work on their goals. When they share action that they've taken, I place a colour coded sticker on their Action star. 

Learner Profile goals get a yellow sticker, Skill goals a red sticker, and Attitudes get a green sticker. The stickers act as visual reminders and they can see which goal they need to work on and it helps me to see which students are making connections and able to talk about their learning and action taken from learning. 

This also allows us to always be going through the Action Cycle (Choose, Act, Reflect). If students have not shared for a few days, then we encourage them to choose 1 of their goals for that day and really try to work on it, by the next day, they usually have something to share and reflect on. 

My little monkeys are very eager to share the action that they have taken. Every morning I'm amazed at some of the ways my students have made connections and the examples they give me of how they have taken action at home or at school. I have so many students eager to share their action every morning that I've had to make a schedule for Action sharing so that all students are getting equal opportunities to share their action. Red stars share on Mondays, Blue on Tuesdays, Green stars on Wednesdays, Orange stars Thursdays, Yellow stars on Fridays. Once all the students who's day it is have shared I then open up the floor to everyone. 

Ariel and I also keep a watch out for the students that struggle with being able to identify action that they've taken. Sometimes we will share an example of action taken that we've seen from these students if they are having trouble identifying it on their own. This is by far the most success I've had with student goal setting and action taking. If students are not reminded daily of their goals and given a chance to reflect and see their progress, they easily forget about their goals.

UOI 3 Sharing the Planet - Student Goal Setting
Learner Profiles - Caring, Knowledgable & Reflective
Approaches to Learning - Communication Skill & Thinking Skills
Attitude - Empathy & Cooperation

At the end of the Unit of Inquiry we count all the stickers and decide if they reached their goals or if they still need to work on their goals, there's that Action Cycle again! If the student was able to share at least 5 ways in which they took action to work on their goal, then they earn their "banana" for that goal. The bananas again act as a visual reminder and show off their progress and growth throughout the year. My students are very proud to show off their success to their parents and are able to explain WHY and HOW they earned each banana wether it be a Learner Profile banana, Attitude banana, or Skill banana. Their ability to speak about their goals and action makes me so INCREDIBLE HAPPY!

Students earn a "banana" with their goal printed on it
when they have taken action to achieve their goal.

At the end of the UOI we go back to the reflection sheet and the students fill it out and either draw pictures or write about the action that they took to earn their banana. If they didn't earn both of their banana goals we then ask them to identify what further action they can take to achieve it. I only have a few students that constantly struggle with self-improvement and achieving their goals. If they haven't achieved their goals yet by the end of the UOI, we do have them choose new goals, but we then continue to verbally remind them of their previous goals. When we think that child has shown significant progress and has achieved their learning goals, their efforts are then acknowledged and their progress (in the form of a banana) is added to their "Monkey."

I'm curious to know, how do other PYP teachers encourage Action and Student Goal Setting in your classrooms ? How do you focus on developing the attributes of the Learner Profile, Attitudes and Skills? Leave me a comment and I'll share my action goal setting reflection sheets with you.