When Culmination Comes First

When I was coaching varsity Track & Field at Lake Central, we began training for the spring season right after Thanksgiving. We trained right through the snow and cold with a “Winter Warrior” mindset.  The workouts I planned began with the preparation for the week of the state meet in June that was six months away, followed by the workouts for the conference and tournament series in May, then April, March, and so forth. This was a true backward design approach (you may have heard me mention this 5-10,000 times as the teaching game plan.) It is important to plan with the culminating goal first in mind.  It is even more important to plan that you will be there, in this case, the state championships, when that day arrives.  That is the mindset issue.  If your athletes do not believe they will reach the goal, they never will; plain and simple.  You can’t just make it up as you go.  BUT, you CAN make adjustments along the way based on how the training is resulting in performance.  Sure, there were days when weather conditions may not have allowed us to conquer a training session like I had envisioned.  That is where Plan B or C or D were utilized..  We trained in some fairly miserable conditions.  Our practices were never cancelled.  Along the way to the ultimate long-term goal, short-term goals were also set to assess progress.  The data will show that this approach worked as we never failed to reach our goals in my tenure.  Along with reaching team goals, the vast majority reached their personal goals and 56 of them earned “All-State” status.  The backwards approach really works moving forward.

Creating goals has to be meshed with a plan of action.  If you don’t know how you are going to get there, well, you never will.  As you establish long-term goals for your classes, you need to understand what goes into the achievement of reaching that goal.  Along the way toward reaching that culminating goal, a series of assessments is vital. The assessments should tell you if the kids are on “track” and should be used to inform your instruction.  Utilize RtI period and Resource period to intervene.  These are the daily goals that I see in every classroom that I visit…  BUT, if those daily goals do not come with some sort of measurement/assessment, then that goal is nothing more than words written in dry erase marker.  Know that the long-term goals will require a large investment of time with intentional, prescriptive, deliberate, and diagnostic teaching. because if not, the goal will never be reached.  That investment is to be shared by the teacher, students, and parents…BUT understand that does not mean that that the investment will be shared in equal 33.33% shares.  In a perfect word sure, BUT…this is not a perfect world and never will be.  It takes a reality assessment to determine whether or not you are on track.  That also dictates that you have to accept the real possibility that you may have to go back a few steps before you can move forward.  It will be great when we reach our school goal this year.  Won’t it be great when your team reaches its goal and even better when individual students reach theirs?  The backwards approach really works moving forward.