Your Super Goal

On Sunday, the San Francisco 49’ers and the Baltimore Ravens will face each other in Super Bowl XLVII. Along with Super Bowls come “Super Goals”. The boys in my family (ages 13-77) will meet in a testosterone heavy atmosphere at my little brother’s house complete with manly talk about chainsaws and having dental work without novocaine.  The ladies will go their separate way (I think my wife enjoys that) and talk about just how silly it is to put so much emphasis on a stupid football game. For the past two weeks, coaching staffs on both sides have spent a great deal of time breaking down game films of the opposition.  Why?  In short, they want to find tendencies in the offensive strategy of their opponent and defensive schemes against offensive sets as well as special teams coverage and alignments. These films will have been viewed, analyzed, viewed again, and then discussed for hours on end. Data will be collected and adjustments will be made relative to this data. In all of this, they hope to find the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent.  The key is to find matchups that can be exploited. For example, a 6’6” wide receiver typically wins against a 5’9” cornerback.  I know this because it happens every week in Cleveland.   The weaker players will be attacked. I know this as well because it happens every week in Cleveland. The stronger players will hopefully be marginalized. There may be a little trickery inserted into the plan. Each team will take what it does best and use it to reach the goal while along the way disrupting the way the other team wants to play. The coaching staff is trying to put together a winning game plan; a plan that gives them the best chance of winning.  That’s what great coaches do.

As you plan for your students to achieve and improve, think in terms of putting together a winning game plan.  Make a plan that gives your kids the best chance to demonstrate what they have learned.  In your Super Goal, called the ISTEP, we are not matching up against a visible opponent. Each student is trying to improve their score from last year and show growth accordingly as evidenced by their individual goals. We are not attempting to exploit weaknesses; we are trying to accentuate strengths. We are not attacking the weaker players; we are supporting them.  Our goal is for each student to improve from the previous year and to get more kids to achieve at higher levels than in the past. That is what those individual goal conferences are about. The culture that we have created is one of continuous improvement.  Our strategy is to maximize opportunities through relevant, purposeful, and deliberate instructional practice.  We want to minimize errors by working through student misconceptions on concepts.  You are like the Head Coaches of the Niners and Ratbirds (sorry, not high on a Browns’ fan list of teams to love) and you are formulating the game plan.  You are using informal and formative assessments to plan your instruction.  You are analyzing data to find out if what you are doing is working and then making adjustments.  So, what is your game plan to reach your individual, team, and school goals?  Finish the preparation in a purposeful way.  Make sure that your plan will be the one that gives your kids the best chance of winning. That’s what great teachers do.

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So, who wins the big game?  A.  Niners      B. Ravens        C. Indigestion