 Welcome to five more minutes useful videos and about five minutes that support the teaching and learning of all students I'm your host Shelly Moore and today's episode is called Hey, see you later smart goals So if you don't know what a smart goal is it's a strategy that uses an acronym that describes that goals should be specific measurable Something else something else Timely timely and if you are in the special education field, you probably like me think that they're the worst So for a smart goal You basically take a behavior that you want to be displayed by another person and you turn it into something like maybe what my Wife might say to me Shelly will put her dirty clothes in the laundry basket 80% of the time with 96% accuracy by June 2020 It's never gonna happen smart goals are one goal setting strategy for sure But it's nonsensical to assume that it's the only strategy for capturing my progress and growth to change as a laundry Sorter or as the only method we use of assessing growth for kids with disabilities Smart goals are almost exclusively the only type of goals used to create individual education plans But do you know why I didn't either so I needed to do some research There was a time and still is very much believed by people that the only way to know that learning is happening Is if it's captured by another person and so the assumption is that if it can't be captured well then learning must not be happening Now you can see why this would be problematic then for individuals who learn in different ways or don't Communicate in the same way as the person who's doing the assessing Okay, so as you can see there are a few problems here problem number one Smart goals rely on a very problematic assumption that goes directly against a fundamental understanding of inclusion The importance of presuming competence all kids can learn because of course someone is learning Even if it can't be captured in the specific unit of measure Preferred by the person or the system that is doing the assessment problem number two The other tricky thing about smart goals is that if you think back to my laundry basket smart goal example The next question is to ask well Who's gonna collect that data as a result smart goals have often left our educational assistance with the burden of spending large portions of Their day creating frequency tallies usually aiming to capture unwanted behaviors And we all know that in a classroom the more data-free hands we have on deck the better for all students problem number three IEPs have also historically been designed to be implemented in only one setting Which is usually a self-contained or a segregated setting in these settings It doesn't matter if IEP goals are connected to non-disabled peers because they aren't together But inclusive classrooms now students with disabilities and their peers are learning together So it's very tricky when one group of students is learning curriculum aligned with cognitive and learning goals Well kids with disabilities are learning curriculum that are connected to functional and behavior-based goals. Oh, we're not done problem number four Current curricular efforts including in British Columbia are starting to embrace more 21st century learning goals and Competency-based curriculum for all students. This is great But these competencies are not functional or behavioral My friend and colleague Laura Tate refers to competencies as characteristics and elements of being like for example Being joyful being inclusive being creative and even being patient How about even love? But can you imagine what a smart goal would look like for the competency of being joyful? Shelly will be joyful 80% of the time with 96% accuracy by June 2020 I don't even know what that means. Like if I'm not joyful, it's probably not my fault. Okay So what's the solution to these problems? Well, let's think what would researchers do? What's the alternative to quantitative data? Qualitative data in qualitative research It's not the quantity or frequency that you need to meet a goal But to what quality complexity and number of ways or perspectives that it can be displayed That's what matters this type of assessment relies on triangulated evidence or multiple types and examples that is collected by the student their family and their teams It is much more authentic and can take multiple forms without relying on the one way This could be photos videos examples of student work stories gestures and even movements These forms are also much more interesting and meaningful to kids and their families than data tally charts I mean, I wouldn't hang a behavior tally chart on my fridge But that's just me these formats can also be captured and valid at any time Not just at school or in a particular class or at a specific time of day or when a particular person is watching with a data tally chart How exciting would it be if IEPs were written like this from a qualitative lens looking at strengths and possibilities of what kids are Doing instead of trying to track failed attempts of what they can't or should be doing. Okay, so here's your job today I want you to look at an IEP this can be from any student And I want you to try turning a smart goal into an I can statement and remove all the numbers I can be joyful. I can put my laundry in a basket. I can be on time. No, I can't I can't be on time. Who am I kidding? Let's rewrite that smart goal acronym to help us to create goals with students that are strength-based meaningful authentic responsive and triangulated Okay, everybody make sure you share this video with all of your friends so that we can start the smart goal revolution Hey, thanks for watching