Chapter 5 – Metacognition and Metacognitive Strategies
Chapter 5 – Metacognition and Metacognitive Strategies
SMART Goals
Addy Orsi; Bibi Halima; and Keli Yerian
Preview Questions
- What is a SMART goal?
- What is the difference between indirect and direct learning strategies?
From setting New Year’s resolutions to hoping for an A in a class, we make goals for ourselves with little planning all the time. In the beginning, we may feel motivated to achieve it but overwhelmed with where to start. As time passes, our spontaneity leaves us unsure of what comes next and how to proceed. Does this sound familiar?
What are SMART goals?
A metacognitive strategy that can help us focus on the process and make our goals work for us is turning them into SMART goals. ‘SMART’ stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound (University of California SMART goals: A How to Guide [PDF]). SMART goals have us consider what exactly we want to achieve in the end and how we will achieve it. Even after we set the goal, we continue to reflect on our final result and the measures we are taking. It is perfectly normal for some part of our goal to not go according to plan. In that situation, we adjust to what would work better.
Does this remind of anything? Remember the previous section. What level of metacognitive learning is this? If you said ‘Reflective’, that’s right! SMART goals help us to reach a reflective level of learning. Let’s follow along with Addy in the video as they show their process of making SMART goal for their own language learning. Notice the five characteristics that makes a goal SMART.
Addy debriefs these 5 characteristics more below.
Specific
Keeping our task specific keeps our end result of the goal clear and focused.
In the example video, rather than generally saying “I want to improve my Spanish,” the goal was made specific by expressing what aspects I wanted to improve like listening skills, following the storyline, and identifying keywords. Without the clarification, the goal is too broad and vague.
Measurable
We are able to track our progress when the goal is measurable. This makes it much easier to know what we have to complete and when it will be completed.
If I simply put that I will watch a kid’s show, it is unclear how long I expect to watch it. Will I watch five minutes of one episode? Will I watch 15 episodes in full? By stating I will watch two 20-minute long episodes, I have a clear understanding how how much I will be watching. Additionally, once I have finished watching two episodes, I will know that I have completed this task.
Achievable
What is achievable varies from person to person. What is achievable for you?
One person may only be able to watch one episode each day, some may be able to watch three. The complexity of the speech could be simple to one person based on their previous experience, but it could be too far above another person’s understanding. In my case, two episodes seems realistic in my life as a busy student. Also, Pocoyo is a show that has an acces