Christen Hargett teaches 7th grade English and last year had the opportunity to attend a Leader In Me Symposium. One of her "take aways" from the conference was the power of goal setting for increasing student motivation and achievement. Recently, Miss Hargett saw a need for improvement in her students' vocabulary scores. She decided to tackle this issue by giving the problem to the students. First she created for each class a graph of their vocabulary test class averages. As she presented the graphs to her classes, concern was sparked in the students. This concern led to discussion on why there was a problem and how it could be fixed. Classes then discussed and set goals for the next vocabulary test. A new study plan was created which included classroom warm-ups where students helped and encouraged each other. Examples of those warm-ups include peer critique of vocabulary sentences, and student generated practice quizzes. Students seemed to appreciate the help from peers, all given in the spirit of reaching the class goal together. Miss Hargett was excited to share with her class the improvement in test scores on the next vocabulary test. Class averages moved from a C average up to an A average. Her classes were proud of their accomplishments and the best part was that the improvement was due to the buy-in and motivation of the students.
Would you like to do something similar in your classes? Stop by Miss Hargett's room and ask her questions. She has a wealth of knowledge to share about using graphs and data to motivate students.
