Daily Goals

Part of being an active learner is being able to articulate exactly what you have learned and
being able to be specific about it. It is a lot harder than it sounds. You do a lot of different things
in each class; it can be hard to remember what exactly you learned. It is often thought that it is
the teacher’s job to stand at the front of the room and impart knowledge. That is a false
statement. Learning requires active participation from yourself. Teachers can give you all the
knowledge in the world, but it is up to you to use and apply it to make it meaningful. The way
we are going to make learning meaningful in Ag I is by writing daily class goals and reflecting on
our learning at the end of class.
Structure
In your notebook, there will be a section with several pages labeled “Daily Goals”. We will
begin every class by writing in this section for the first 3 minutes of class. The first part you will
write is the goal itself. It may be provided for you on the board or the objectives for the day will
be written and you can create your own goal. It will roughly be a sentence long, and it is specific,
measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely, or SMART.
At the end of class, you will be given three minutes to reflect on what you did in class that day.
Somedays the goal will be met and exceeded, other days we will come up short. Both can be
reflected on. The reflection can be a couple of sentences long, but it must be meaningful and
honest. More details on that later. Both goal and reflection will be a total of 10 points counted
towards a weekly participation grade.
Goals
For Goals Provided for you:
The goal will be posting in a spot where you can easily see it. The goal will pertain to what we
will be doing in class that day. The good news is that if you write in down completely in your
notebook, you get 5 points! It is as easy as that! When we first start writing goals, I will provide
them for you so we can focus on good reflections. If ever you are confused or need help, please
feel free to ask questions or ask for a conference. This is something brand new and it might take
us a bit to get it figured out, but I believe we can do it.
For Goals you have to Write:
This will happen later in the semester when the whole class demonstrates that they can write
good reflections at the end of each lesson. We will then start to write our personal learning goals
for class. These goals will be based off of class objectives for that day and will be read aloud and
out in a visible place. You have a choice on what your personal goal will be, but it must be
SMART and be more than a generic sentence. See the following examples.
Goal Examples
Pre-written:
We will demonstrate our knowledge of complimentary colors by creating different floral
arrangements using the color wheel. 5 pts
Write yourself:
Objectives:
 We will identify different grains found in livestock rations
 We will explore what nutrients grain supplies in rations
 We will make our own livestock ration
A Well Written Goal: My goal for this lesson is to identify which grain is the most nutritious in
livestock rations and what nutrients it contributes. 5 pts
A Poorly Written Goal: My goal for class is to learn about livestock feed. 1 pt
Reflections
At the end of each class you will reflect on the learning you did in class that day. There are
some days that we will meet the class goal or the goal you wrote, other days we will not finish
the lesson. Regardless if we get to our goal or not, you will write a reflection. The point of
reflections is for you and me to track your learning. This is where I can see where you are
stuggling and where you are succeeding. The reflection portion of Daily Goal will be worth 5
points. The reflection examples below will be based off of the goals in the previous section.
A Well Reflection: Today we did not get to the exploration of nutrients part of the lesson, but I
did learn that a balanced ration is needed to meet the nutrition needs of all livestock. Without
balanced ration, livestock would not grow properly, mature females would have a hard time
breeding, and poor nutrition leads to a lot of health problems. 5 pts
Or
Today in class I leaned that alfalfa contributes the most protein in any ration that it is in. It is a
high quality feed and is desirable in some livestock feeds. The downside to using alfalfa is that it
may cause bloat in ruminant animals and can be very expensive. 5 pts
A Poorly Written Reflection: I learned that you can make bouquets with many different color
flowers. 2 pts
Grading
Each example has a point value assigned to it so you can see what earns a certain grade. The
whole Daily Goal write up is worth 10 points: 5 points from the goal, 5 points from the
reflection. You will write a goal each day in class for 10 pts a day. It will be counted in a weekly
grade of 40 points. Your effort determines the grade you get.
Breakdown of points:
5 Points- Goal Statement & Plan The goal must be measurable, written in
complete sentences, and pertain to the lesson

5 Points- Reflection State whether or not you reached your goal

and why, how might you have done better or
what you learned today. Must be written in
complete sentences.
Total: 10 Points Daily 40 points Weekly

Re-Dos
I will do my best have your Daily Goal graded each day so you can receive feedback on your
writing and goals. At the end of each week, you will have the chance to redo any goal or
reflection that you would like to try again. At the end of each week of Daily goals, write a
heading of “Re-Dos”, the date you are redoing, and either goal or reflection. Use the feedback
you get to improve, it is written for a reason. The grade you earn on your redo will take the
place of the original and count towards the weekly grade.
Scheduling Meetings
You have the opportunity to schedule meetings with me if you feel like your grade is not
reflecting what you are accomplishing in class or if you have any points of confusion about what
we are doing in class. The way to schedule a meeting with me is to send me an email with
specifics you would like to discuss and several possible meeting times. It is your responsibility to
have the following for the meeting of your needs:
 An outline of items you wish to cover
 Evidence to support your claim (for grade change defense)
 Specific questions or concerns about content
 Professional Attitude
 Tentative List of things that I can do to help
 Willingness to Compromise