G.A.P. Model: Holistic Approach to Student Success with Goal Setting, Planning, and Monito, Lecture notes of Literature

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Running head: THE G.A.P. MODEL FOR STUDENT SUCCESS

The G.A.P. Model for Student Success: Goal Setting, Action Planning, and Progress Monitoring

by Stephanie Alarcon Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in Education

California State University San Marcos May, 2018

Acknowledgments I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the incredibly brilliant people who contributed to the development of this project. Many ‘thank you’s and many hugs to Dr. Jacqueline Thousand; I am forever thankful for your wise guidance, unending encouragement, and dedicated support. Thank you to Leslie Mauerman (and all my professors) for the commitment to cultivating passion and self-motivation in me and all future and current educators. I will have lifelong appreciation for my parents, Susan and Andy, for instilling values in me that have shaped and contributed to the conceptual idea for this project. I am so grateful for the support of all my family and friends, specifically my husband, Joey, for the countless late nights brainstorming, words of encouragement, and love that went into the completion of this project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Abstract Page
• Chapter I: Introduction...............................................................................................
• Chapter II: Literature Review
• Chapter III: Methodology
• Chapter IV: Results
• Chapter V: Discussion
• References
• Appendix A: The G.A.P. Model for Student Success Facilitation Guide

from an angry and negative freshman student to a resilient, self-reliant, and courageous youth. A large part of this transformation can be credited to the many support staff that surrounded him with a caring and positive environment in which he felt comfortable to discover his personal passions and shape a positive view of his future. Therefore, developing student self-motivation is a critical component to student success, which can be bolstered by access to holistic resources that address many facets of student needs. In my southern California K-12 school district, there are abundant resources to serve approximately 36,000 students and 1,600 teachers using the California Common Core College and Career Readiness standards, resulting in 70% of graduating seniors meeting the University of California and California State University systems’ course requirements (ed-data.org). This district has established the following top five priority goals: Goal 1. To support high-quality teachers in their implementation of an articulated California standards-based curriculum, instruction, and assessment to ensure College and Career Readiness and Citizenship for all students, K-12. Goal 2. To create systems and structures that provide multiple pathways of learning and engagement to increase College and Career Readiness of our students and close the achievement gaps for all subgroups. Goal 3. To strengthen safe, healthy, positive, and attractive learning environment and experiences for all learners. Goal 4. To increase student and parent engagement in learning through enhanced community involvement, two-way communication, and partnerships with community businesses.

Goal 5. To develop, implement, and embed a collaborative learning structure and system for adults and students to increase student achievement. Despite these great goals and resources advocated at the district and school site level, I was alarmed to discover that less than half of my students entered the school year with even a single personal goal for high school or post-secondary life. Additionally, many students also appeared unmotivated by positive and/or negative reinforcement strategies or reward systems, or parental threats of banning access to treasured technology. In reflecting on the stated district goals, student needs, and the desire to drive student self-motivating behaviors both academically and holistically, I began brainstorming concrete ways to cultivate and manifest these goals in the lives of my students. First, I analyzed the school’s mission statement to identify key concepts (emphasized below):

This high school believes students have succeeded when they have developed an array of choices for their path after graduation. This high school’s responsibility to the community is to provide the core experiences for students which build passion and conviction , as well as qualify and prepare students for success on their chosen path. Core experiences for students include:

1. Contributions to, and participation in a safe and supportive school culture
2. Excelling in rigorous courses
3. Positively engaged in extra-curricular activities
4. Proudly providing service to our community” While weighing the meaning and practical implications of the mission statement, I concurred that my school site offers a safe and supportive school environment, an array of choices in classes and extracurricular activities, and encouraged community service. However, two words kept

the literature to determine the importance of passion and self-motivation as it relates to student success, as well as explore the merits of an educational approach for cultivating passion and self- motivation in students by teaching goal setting and progress monitoring strategies. The purpose of this project was to develop a holistic educational approach for cultivating passion and self-motivation among secondary students and provide collaborative resources for secondary educators implementing this model. The result was the creation of the G.A.P. (Goal Setting, Action Planning, and Progress Monitoring) Model for Student Success , a student- centered program that provides tools for students to successfully engage in mindful goal setting, action planning and progress monitoring across social, emotional, academic, and life skills domains. When implemented in a collaborative secondary school setting, the G.A.P. Model has the potential to positively impact education both in the classroom and beyond because it offers teachers and students a step-by-step model for goal setting, action planning, and progress monitoring across four domains. As students learn to apply this model across the domains of social, emotional, academic, and life skill development, they become empowered to be self- motivated individuals more likely to stay involved in learning activities and overall self- awareness.

Definition of Terms The following terms were used in this project: Action Planning: a process which will help one to focus one’s ideas and to decide what steps one needs to take to achieve particular goals. Goal Setting: refers to identifying areas of growth in a short-term or long-term fashion. Grit: the “perseverance and passion for long-term goals (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly 2007). Grit entails “working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress” (2007, pp. 1087 - 1088). Passion: the “strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/passion). Progress Monitoring : the collection of data in order to measure one’s advancement towards meeting the set goal (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/progress monitoring). Self-Motivation : ability to do what needs to be done, without influence from other people or situations (Suhadi, Abdullah, Zaid, Mohamed, Aris, & Sanmugam, 2015). Student Success : “consists not just of good grades and steady progress toward graduation, but a holistic sense of fulfillment. They want to become strong candidates for careers in their chosen fields, emerge as competent and trustworthy adults, look back on their time without regrets, and make their mentors and family members proud” (Yi, 2018, para. 2).

quality of friendship and work satisfaction (Thorgren, Wincent, & Siren, 2013). In this same vein, Schiphof (2008) found that life satisfaction was positively linked to harmonious passion and negatively linked to obsessive passion. Based on these definitions and distinctions of passion, I desired to focus upon cultivating harmonious passion in students. As a part of creating the “autonomous internalization” and “choice”, the education model created for this project would use a student-driven, cyclical process of goal setting and monitoring in which failures and setbacks were approached as opportunities to reassess and reset or adjust goals. Self-Motivation Self-motivation is defined as the “ability to do what needs to be done, without influence from other people or situations” (Suhadi, Abdullah, Zaid, Mohamed, Aris, & Sanmugam, 2015, p. 1), and in the academic setting, the inclination to engage challenges in and out of the classroom (Middleton & Perks, 2014). Self-motivation is therefore closely related to self- regulation, independence, and self-determination. It is a highly desirable trait that not only has been shown to positively promote academic success (Brackett, 2007; Suhadi et al., 2015), but also provide lifelong benefits to individuals possessing this characteristic. In a recent Tedx Talk, Ben Maddahi (2015) identified self-motivation, passion, and self-trust as three key ingredients to a person’s sense of living a fulfilled life. Therefore, fostering self-motivation during the secondary school education is crucial because it increases the likelihood that students will be successful and satisfied in their future personal and professional goals and endeavors.

Conceptual and Theoretical Frameworks that Support Student Goal Setting and Achievement in a Safe Learning Environment Circle of Courage People universally identify that the desired outcome of an education system is youth who are courageous, passionate, well-rounded, self-actualized individuals with the disposition and skills to create belonging, give love, strive for mastery and independence, and be generous (Villa, Thousand, and Nevin 2010). These findings align with Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern’s (2002) description of traditional Native American philosophy of education known as the Circle of Courage. In this philosophy, a youth will develop as a well-rounded “courageous” person if educators and the community encourage the youth’s development in four domains: belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. In order to develop these domains, educators can create a safe and inclusive learning environment that values, emphasizes, and creates opportunities for students to practice exhibiting behaviors in these domains. Stated otherwise, Jones & Kahn (2017) argue that the ability to set goals, manage behavior [e.g., develop independence], build relationships [e.g., develop a sense of belonging and exhibit generosity], and process and remember information [e.g., develop mastery] are fundamentally tied to environments that can be intentionally structured to nurture these specific [Circle of Courage] skills and competencies. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Kilne (n.d.) notes that before students are able to reach their potential, teachers need to meet students at their individual current levels (http://www.changekidslives.org/actions-4/). In addition, an understanding of a student and care for their well-being extends beyond simply assessing their academic performance and capability. A true understanding of a student involves

unafraid to make mistakes and also view themselves as capable learners, their esteem builds, and students become more able and likely to achieve goals (Dweck, 2015). Mindfulness Mindfulness is yet another conceptual framework and set of practices used to increase teacher and student well-being, and readiness to engage and learn. Mindfulness is the practice of “placing attention and awareness on what is happening in the present moment without making any judgments about it” (McAvoy & Thousand, 2017, p. 1). Embedding mindfulness within the classroom culture and environment can positively influence the emotional and social climate among classmates and equip students “to respond appropriately to situations instead of merely reacting to them” (McAvoy & Thousand, p. 1). Additionally, mindfulness can improve students’ concentration, enthusiasm for learning, self-reflection, and social behaviors. (McAvoy & Thousand, 2017). Grit Finally, grit is emerging as a concept positively associated with student success_._ Key researchers in the field define grit as the “perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress” (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly 2007, pp. 1087 - 1088). These authors encourage teachers to create a culture that celebrates stamina, in which achievement is approached as a marathon, not a race. Grit is an important disposition in the context of student goal setting, because it allows students to overcome both the trials of everyday experiences (short-term) and persevere to achieve future goals (long-term).

Strategies and Tools to Assist Students to Identify, Set, Monitor, and Achieve Goals Several evidence-based methodologies exist to support students as they identify, set, monitor, and work toward achieving personal goals. A subset of these strategies have been used primarily with students with disabilities to collaborative plan for annual and post-school goals and transitions. However, such strategies are just as applicable for meaningful and effective planning with any student. In Collaborating with Students in Instruction and Decision Making: The Untapped Resource , Villa, Thousand, and Nevin (2010) highlight three of these strategies that help students goal set and monitor their achievement: Making Action Plans, Student-Led Individual Education Program planning, and Personal Learning Plans. Each of these steps will be examined briefly below. Making Action Plans Making Action Plans (MAPs) is a collaborative and creative planning process that identifies the history, strengths, interests, capacities, gifts, dreams, and fears of/for an individual. The purpose of MAPs is to create a vision and set of actions toward building a positive future that is shared by both the individual and his or her support network (e.g., teachers, agencies supporting the individual and/or family), family, and friends (https://inclusive- solutions.com/person-centred-planning/maps/). A MAPs meeting can include anyone who has a stake or interest in the life of the individual. The MAPs process has become an essential step in the assessment and goal setting process for students and adults with disabilities, guided by the dreams and fears of the focus person and their supporters. The MAPs’ overarching goal is the movement of a person toward achieving his or her dreams and away from potential negative futures.

it promotes early development of personal responsibility and focuses students upon individualized improvement. SMART Goal Setting The SMART acronym was first described by Doran (1981) to describe a S (specific), M (measurable), A (assignable), R (realistic), and T (Time-related) goal setting process. Subsequently, Haughey (n.d.) expanded the meaning of each of the letters of the acronym to include goals that are S (specific, significant, and stretching); M (measurable, meaningful, and motivational); A (agreed-upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, and action-oriented); R (realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, and results-oriented); T (time-based, time-bound, timely, tangible, and trackable). Various iterations of the SMART goal setting system are widely utilized in business, education, and personal development sessions. When comparing well-formed outcomes with the SMART goal setup, Day and Tosey (2011) state that “well-formed outcomes offer a more rigorous and holistic approach, by taking greater account of the learner's identity, affective dimensions (feelings and emotions), social relations and values, as well as encouraging mental rehearsal” (p. 515). Given this precedent, I chose to combine the SMART goal setting approach with a holistic view of important goal setting domains, which I believe will best assist students to develop into well-rounded individuals. The culmination of this combination was the foundation of the Goal, Action, Progress (G.A.P.) Student Success planning process and resource forms which employ SMART principles to teach and guide students to select, compose, and monitor personalized short-term and long-term goals during their secondary school journey.

Literature that Informs Domains for Goal Setting A considerable amount of literatures has examined the process of goal setting. For example, Agran (1997) proposed three steps for self-management: (1) setting a goal, (2) developing a plan that includes self-monitoring, and (3) evaluating the success of the plan. In the context of a holistic goal setting experience and process geared towards adolescents, I envisioned developing a tool that addresses not only academic goal setting, but also setting and monitoring goals in emotional, social, and life skills domains. The inclusion of these domains was based on the theory that “strengths or weaknesses in one area foster or impede development in others; each carries aspects of the others” (Jones & Kahn, 2017, p. 4), meaning that a student cannot achieve academic goals without taking into account various other domains. In 2014, I visited the Monarch School, an educational program that serves K-12 students impacted by homelessness in San Diego County. I was impressed by the authentic and genuine care demonstrated by educators toward students as they used systematic and personalized supports crafted with every student and their families. As stated on the school’s website, “Monarch has developed an innovative approach to learning where students gain the skills they need to improve their lives, develop awareness of their emotions and healthy coping skills, explore their passions, and plan for a life of self-sufficient living” (http://monarchschools.org/our-approach/). For the unique student population served by this school, the educational process personally identifies and deliberately supports growth and goal setting in the four “learning” domains of emotional, social, academic, and life skill growth. From my experience at the Monarch school, I was inspired to incorporate a similar systematic process and toolset for assisting secondary students to set SMART goals, develop concrete action plans, and monitor their progress toward achieving their personalized goals in the emotional, social,