THE BENEFITS OF GOALS SETTING


INTRODUCTION

Setting goals with students is an important process that can, unfortunately, become lost in the day-to-day mechanics of program and classroom management. By understanding the importance of goal setting; however, both students and teachers can make this process a valuable educational experience to facilitate teachers’ understanding of their students as well as the students’ understanding of themselves.


HOW DOES GOAL SETTING BENEFIT OUR STUDENTS?

Goal setting serves to establish a partnership with the students. The goal setting process:

Ø Promotes learner ownership by establishing the student as an agent in learning.
Ø Helps students become aware of the differences between short-term and long-term needs.
Ø Provides students with opportunities for success.
Ø Helps students set realistic expectations as they realize that everything they set to accomplish will not happen overnight but rather in a more realistic time frame.
Ø Helps low self-esteem students gradually develop into new, rekindled, high self-esteem learners.
Ø Helps students become self-motivated and persistent in the pursuit of life-long learning.
Ø Allows students to learn that goals can and do change.
Ø Helps students learn to reflect of their progress or lack of progress toward goals and modify and set new goals, as needed.



WHAT IS THE TEACHER’S ROLE IN STUDENT GOAL SETTING?


Student goal setting allows teachers to specifically target their classroom instructions. When the instruction comes directly from the learners’ goals, instructors give the students exactly what is needed to promote their success. As a result:

Ø Authentic goal setting should inform curriculum development.
Ø As students begin to “own” their learning the teacher becomes a facilitator.
Ø This ownership and progress encourages students to learn outside the classroom.
Ø Both students and teacher measure progress as it relates to the achievement of short-term and long-term goals.
Ø Students are equipped with a skill that enables them to learn and grow beyond the classroom.

final study tips

final study tips

CAPE COMMUNICATION STUDIES: WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?

Communication has been generally defined as the imparting of information (Webster's, 2001). According to the (American Heritage, 2000) communication is, "The exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, signals, writing, or behavior,"

So you have been trying to get a message to your friend, you have called, texted, written e-mails, sent the message via another mutual friend and there has been no response. So then, have you communicated with your friend? The answer is "no", your message sending has been one way and thus far totally unsuccessful. Attempted, unsuccessful, unidirectional sending of messages is not communication, but it can be called "attempted communication."

"Communication" is a process (Noun). "Communicate" is an action (Verb). "A communication" is a message. Sending a message or in this cases, messages is not the same as communicating. You could say that by leaving the messages for your friend, you have initiated communication. It could even be said that you are in the act of communicating. But, until your friend accepts your text message, opens it, reads your message, and understands and give the appropriate response to your words--only when all of that happen--you have only attempted communication. As long as your messages remain unanswered, the communication attempt is still in progress. When, after 15 days your text message is deleted--we can officially declare the process as a failed communication.

Communication can be successful or unsuccessful. Successful communication requires a recipient to understand the message that was sent. Communication is said to be unsuccessful when either the message that was sent did not reach its target, or the message that reached its target was not understood. A message sent and received, but not understood is a "failed or unsuccessful communication."