In the article we read at, http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/sett.php it says, “Instructional goals should not be too specific. When goals are too narrowly focused they can limit learning (Fraser, 1987; Walberg, 1999).” I found this so interesting. I never thought about goal setting as being too limiting. We spend so much time learning about and enforcing the idea of goal writing, I had not thought much about it actually hindering the learning process. Basically everything we do with students is a result of objectives and goal settings. Either ones we pull from State standards or ones we create as standards in our own classroom. Even teachers set their own personal goals, they are all around us!
This is why the idea of making goals too narrow is such an interesting and important discussion point. If the goal is too specific it might make it difficult for the student to generalize the information to other scenarios. I think a great way to deal with this is to set goals often and to go over how you (the teacher) made the goal and why. It would also be helpful to set individual goals with each student. By making it personal for them you can give them feedback on how they are doing and they can really internalize the process of goal setting.
rebeccaaf 