This document discusses establishing challenging learning goals for students. It provides context about the school and outlines the author's process of setting learning goals in various classes, collecting data on student engagement, and what they learned. Specifically, the author learned that setting personalized yet challenging goals during the design process leads to students taking pride in their work and increased positive engagement, especially when the goals are revisited throughout the project. Timing and flexibility in goal setting is also important.

2. Overview
• Setting
• Self review
• Project proposal
• The importance of learning goals
• What I did
• What I have found out
• What I now know

3. Setting
• Loxton High School is a Department of Education and Child
Development (DECD) operated school that proves a curriculum
for years 8 to 12.
• The School is located in Loxton, in the Riverland, 252km east of
Adelaide.
• It consist of approximately 630 students and approximately 50
staff that all work around the 5 core values that underpin the
school. These include, respect, trust, optimism, commitment,
and support, and are highly regarded in everything the school is
involved in.

4. Self Review
• To familiarise myself with the Australian Professional
standards for teachers.
• To be able to recognise indicators of challenging
learning goals

5. Project Proposal
This proposal has been created to focus on AITSL standard:
3.0 - Plan for and implement effective teaching and
Learning.
With a particular focus on:
• 3.1 – Establish challenging learning goals
Action research is a way in which teachers are able to take
data to reflect and analyse their practise to become a more
effective educator.

6. The importance of
learning goals
• Learning goals are important in any learning or teaching setting.
It is important to have learning goals that are achievable but yet
challenging. This promotes positive engagement.
• Establishing challenging goals is a positive, life-long skill that
can be taken much further than just the workshop.

7. The importance of
learning goals
• In a design and technology setting students are often designing
that is very specific to their wants and needs and are often
personalised pieces. This allows teachers to enhance their idea
generation and incorporate learning goals that are challenging.
Being challenging and personal, the students then take huge
pride in their pieces no matter what size or quality.

8. What I did
Established a positive relation with my students in the following
classes.
• Yr. 8 Design and Technology – Acrylic Key tags
• Yr. 10 CADD – 3D printed Lego Family
• Yr. 10 Furniture Construction – Major Framing Project
• Yr. 11 Outdoor Education – Bushwalking and Kayaking

9. What I did
In order to gain data I used a range of data collection methods,
these include:
1. Proforma showing students strengths and weakness filled out
by the mentor.
2. Proforma showing students strengths and weaknesses filled
out by myself and the student.
3. Running sheet of students progress.
4. Survey to be filled out by participating students.

10. What I did
• With many discussions with my 3 mentor teachers as well as
other staff members about particular students I was able to see
if students seemed to be more engaged after establishing
learning goals.
• Not all learning goals differed greatly from their assignments
task. For some students the task given was already
challenging, therefore I personalised the task more for each
individual during the designing phase. This allowed the
challenged students to still create the task but also allowed me
to further challenge the experienced students specific to the
experience they had.

11. What I now know
• After completing the action research I have found
the importance of establishing challenging learning
goals and the power it has in promoting positive
engagement.
• I have also learnt that establishing learning goals
does not always mean differing the task. The task
set may be challenging in itself, but interpreting it
differently to suit an individual student is enough to
maintain positive engagement.

12. What I now know
• I have also learnt that establishing goals during the
early phases of the tasks it is much easier, during
the designing phase I found the easiest. If the
student had begun creating their project they can
then become confused or deviate. If its been
designed then it is official.

13. What I now know
Challenging learning goals
=
A challenged student
=
Pride
=
Positive engagement
=
Less off task behaviour

14. Summary
• Knowing your students is vital to establishing learning goals
that are challenging to each individual.
• Flexibility is vital.
• Continuously making sure that the learning goal is achievable
• Understanding the body language of the students and the
messages they are sending.
• Timing is vital