Mr. Johnson is a second-year high school math teacher who teaches five classes, with each class representing a diverse population. One is a remedial class, two classes have six special education students, and all classes have a large English language learner (ELL) population. Mr. Johnson collaborates with a special education teacher, the instructional math coach, and the structured English immersion coach. He recently attended a professional development session on the new teacher evaluation system and wants to start implementing learning goals in his classroom.

Mr. Johnson reflected on how he collected data the previous year. For one particular Algebra 2 class, he gave his students the quarterly math pre-assessment at the beginning of a unit. He found that 60% of students scored less than 65%, 25% scored between 60–78%, and the remaining 15% scored 85% or higher on the pre-assessment. The results spoke volumes to Mr. Johnson. Most of his students had not been exposed to the upcoming content or had not mastered the skill if they had. At the end of this particular unit, Mr. Johnson gave the same pre-assessment as a post-assessment. All students performed substantially better; however, several students still had low scores. Mr. Johnson finally came to the conclusion that the data he had was limited and was strictly from that unit only. He discovered that for goal setting to truly measure student growth, his goals needed to be based on a skill measured by students’ application of knowledge.

Instead of simply demonstrating that they could or could not do something for a single unit of study, Mr. Johnson wanted his students to demonstrate that they could apply that knowledge in a meaningful way that supports learning across the school year. To accomplish this, he began to get to know his students academically, asking himself questions such as, “What do I know about my students?” and “What do I know about their math abilities?” He also looked at the math standards students should have learned in years past. Mr. Johnson and his team of teachers created a five-level rubric to assess where students are in meeting the benchmark of mathematic practices and principles.

Throughout a variety of additional assessments and using the rubric, Mr. Johnson discovered his students had a wide range of abilities and gaps. He used the rubric for goal setting and decided to focus on three areas of skills instead of all of them. He pulled together data from several of the assessments. Data showed that 75% of students scored at Level 2 on the rubric, while 25% of students performed at Level 1. Finally, Mr. Johnson felt ready to create learning goals for his students.

Mr. Johnson collaborated with his grade-level team of teachers to create a learning goal for his class. Collaboration among fellow educators can assist in developing well-rounded goals that meet all the needs of each student as well as the class as a whole. In addition, there may be data, reflections, or insight about students that other teachers may bring to the discussion, allowing for all to obtain a deeper knowledge about the class and/or students. This collaborative discussion also provides the team of teachers with a strong understanding of the teaching goals or focus for each person on the teaching team. This can, in turn, help create a more cohesive learning structure for students. After careful analysis, Mr. Johnson and his team of teachers created the following learning goal for his class:

This quarter, all of my tenth-grade algebra students will demonstrate measurable growth in their ability to apply algebraic principles. Each student will improve by two levels on the district’s math rubric in the areas of simplifying expressions, linear equations, and applications to geometry with linear equations. Of all students, 80% will perform at Level 4 or higher on the five-point mathematics rubric.

After setting his goal, Mr. Johnson was excited to share the final product with his team. This team of teachers can help in developing goals together and can also assist in how Mr. Johnson will approach reaching this goal with his students. Through collaboration, he can determine, choose, and adapt strategies used by fellow teachers to help students reach the goal and decide on a format to monitor student progress, growth, and gaps in development. He will reflect on data throughout the quarter in order to specifically target instruction from day to day.

By sharing his goal with grade-level teachers, Mr. Johnson can brainstorm teaching strategies and forms of assessments that can be used toward his goal. If Mr. Johnson ever finds that a strategy is not working or that he has exhausted ideas for helping some of the students, he can reach out to his team and collaborate on new ideas they may have. This may even lead to a classroom swap in which teachers exchange or observe one another’s classes to see the new strategies in action. Mr. Johnson demonstrated the GCU professional disposition of Respect for the Diversity of Others (GCU, n.d.). What are some additional ways that one can further meet this disposition?

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