As teachers, we love to see our students grow and learn. Our students aren’t the only ones growing and learning, though. Our professional growth needs to be attended to. You may work for a district that requires teachers to set yearly professional growth goals. Maybe your school requires “SMART” goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based. Each element of the SMART framework works together to create a goal that is carefully planned, transparent, and trackable. Perhaps your state requires an educator to have a professional growth plan. Whoever requires it, whatever you call it, and whatever program you use to measure and track your goals are less important to me than the act of having goals. The act of setting goals enables you to reflect on your work and make informed decisions about what you hope to accomplish and how you choose to allocate your time. There is an expression spiritualist Cora L. V. Hatch delivered at a lecture that we can apply: “You could not prevent a thunderstorm, but you could use the electricity; you could not direct the wind, but you could trim your sail so as to propel your vessel as you pleased, no matter which way the wind blew.”
Schools are filled with bureaucracy, making it easy to view professional goals as just another item on our lengthy back-to-school list, especially when they are due. I hope you consider your goals, and I want you to be completely selfish when you do. What do I mean by that? Your goals focus on personal improvement and enhancing aspects of your career that you consider meaningful. Your school will have initiatives that come and go. Your goals may complement those initiatives, or they may not (and that is okay).
A teacher recently asked if she had developed a good goal. The first goal she explained was about “students creating artwork that they like enough to take home.” I don’t think this is an achievable goal because it would be challenging to change how students feel about their own artwork. I have had students make beautiful work to which they were indifferent. I have had students create mediocre work that they loved. I don’t even want my students to love all their work, because failing is part of learning. So, let me reflect on this teacher’s goal. Is her goal for more artwork that will reach students’ homes and be valued by their families? What actionable steps could she take to make this happen? Does she need to create portfolios for students to transport work home? Or a system, like a newsletter, to communicate about lessons going on in the art room and inform parents of work being sent home? Or maybe she wants students to focus and work harder on their projects so they are more likely to reflect a high level of effort. In that case, she might need goals focused on motivation systems or techniques to slow and calm students. Do you need help forming your goals? I recommend the Gut-Level Teacher Reflection exercise, which will help identify areas of your practice that need the most attention.
I am sharing a list of goals I previously submitted. At my school, the administration requested that we divide our goals into Teaching and Learning/Student Development, School Community, and Professional Development.
- Teaching and Learning / Student Development:
- Maintain and improve the quality of Advanced Placement classes. Continue to work with my students to achieve scores in the 3-5 range in the AP 2D Design Portfolio and AP Drawing Portfolio. Last year, all students met or surpassed their personal goal set for AP exam scoring. √
- Continue to promote students participating in state and local art exhibits, competitions, and Art All-State. √
- Support and assist current seniors pursuing art and art-related fields, as well as underclassmen seeking to expand their arts education over the summer. √
- Gain a deeper understanding of art college options through campus visits and conversations with recruiters, admission representatives, and other knowledgeable sources. √
- Pilot a digital art portfolio with Ceramic students. I made steps towards this last year and would like to implement it fully this year. I am carrying this goal forward from 2014-2015, as it was not achieved due to a slow response from the tech department on working through the logistics of how this could happen.
- Continue to refresh and revise the curriculum and specific lessons as needed. √
- School Community:
- Provide art enrichment/supplemental opportunities for the art club and newly formed National Art Honor Society (NAHS). √
- Publish an annual art and literary magazine with the art club. √
- Continue to work with Advancement staff on promoting the arts at our school, including the talents of our students and staff. Past opportunities have included creating the school Christmas card, designing the cover of VITA, and displaying artwork on the inside back cover of VITA (the school’s magazine), as well as on the Heritage Day T-shirt (Heritage Day is like a school spirit day). √
- Mentor our newly hired art teacher as much as she desires and needs. √
- Restart the school gallery again with the new art teacher.
- Professional Development:
- Continue professional development in the areas of graphic design, art, and technology (Adobe InDesign, CS4, etc.) through classes at a local art college. √
- Attend our Art Education Association’s fall conference.
- Continue to incorporate iPads into teaching and learning. √
I didn’t achieve all my goals (the ones without the √), but establishing goals did allow me to prioritize my energy. For example, after engaging in dialogue with the English department for a couple of years, I successfully published a school art and literary magazine, which the school had previously discontinued. My art club was thrilled to take on the endeavor, which had been in the planning for several years. Writing the goal down helped it move toward becoming a reality rather than languishing in my head as something I would like to do.
Although the goal of “maintain and improve the quality of Advanced Placement classes” may seem vague, I have taken tangible steps to implement it. I developed a program where I met with every single AP student after school in the first few weeks of the year, and we looked over their summer work and past classwork. We set goals for their score and outlined and documented a path to achieve those goals in writing. Those meetings were the best thing I did for the Advanced Placement program at my school. My students referred to the digital notes we took together in the meeting throughout the year.
Maybe your goals are due, and you feel overwhelmed. Maybe you need some inspiration to start your planning. Below are goals from art educators all over the country.
Incorporating literacy into my curriculum; evidence is artist statements, critiques, and reading articles.
Create more opportunities for art projects that connect to the community.
To photograph student work to serve as a visual rubric representing Exemplary, Proficient, and Approaching proficient.
Develop 4 unit plans in the Understanding by Design (UBD) format.
Advocate/publicize the art department by submitting stories and photos to the school website & local newspaper.
Continue developing art therapy skills and knowledge in order to promote student mental health.
Learn Spanish terms and American Sign Language (ASL) signs for art vocabulary.
Become an Adobe Certified Instructor.
Have students apply the elements and principles of art and other art vocabulary words into their class critiques and artist statements.
Create a school Instagram account to highlight art lessons, artwork, and art department events.
Grade and return student work in a timely manner.
Establish routines that ensure maximum time for the creation of art.
Connect with art educators to exchange ideas.
Consistently present directions utilizing more than one modality including verbally, on the whiteboard, written on Google classroom, peer repeat, etc. to benefit a variety of learning styles.
Another source of professional goal ideas can be found at the Cult of Pedagogy.
