Goal setting with PEERS

This is the third installment of a four part series on instructional coaching at RMHS. Missed the first two posts? Check them out here - #1 Coaching Strategies for Classroom Success, #2 Instructional Coaching at RMHS.

This week’s post will talk about the goal setting component of instructional coaching. As I mentioned in last week’s post, my instructional coaching session didn’t come from any specific need. It simply started with recording a class and observing it. From there, Dawn and I discussed what I saw on the video and how that snapshot related to my class as a whole.

So what came next?

Goal setting, of course! Once I processed what I had seen on the video with Dawn, it became apparent to me that I was concerned with the quality of academic Spanish that my students were speaking during a specific activity. After talking through it with Dawn, I thought about providing my students with more scaffolding to assist them in using higher levels of Spanish.     

Most of us have used S.M.A.R.T. goals, but Jim Knight, Instructional Coach guru, suggests that we move beyond them and work to set PEERS goals. 

Keeping these ideas in mind, I started to write a goal. Being new to PEERS goals, it took some time and some back and forth with Dawn, who is more familiar with this style of goal-setting. Here is what I wrote: 

Students will engage in high-quality conversations about our material in Spanish, using provided

stem starters. This can be observed by students:

• maintaining conversations in Spanish for two minutes at a time.  
• using provided stems and adding their own ideas.

Armed with this goal, I set a goal-check date with Dawn and asked her to come record my class again. Between the goal setting and the second recording date, I worked on my goal by designing activities and scaffolding for my students. 

On the day of the second recording, Dawn again came and recorded. After class, I watched the video and scheduled my next coaching session. During the session I evaluated my progress toward my goal and reevaluated its need. Again, I felt like our conversation was really helpful and allowed me to purposefully reflect on what I wanted to see in the students and how I could best facilitate that. It was also nice to talk with Dawn as what I saw in the video was essentially a “positive failure” (AKA what I tried in class did NOT yield the results for which I had hoped!). It was nice to process that with someone. 

All in all, I had a really beneficial experience with my instructional coaching cycle!

Next week, check out our blog post with more information about exactly what we have to offer in instructional coaching here at RMHS. Thanks for reading.