You can’t have agency over your own life if you can’t set and monitor goals and reflect on the effort needed to realize them. Without goal setting, learners lack direction; without self-assessment, they navigate blindly. Real agency emerges when students not only identify their path but also regularly pause to measure their progress, adjust their strategies, and recognize the power of their own effort.

In today’s classrooms, we talk a lot about student ownership. But what does it actually look like?

  • It looks like a student who knows where they’re headed.
  • It sounds like a student who can articulate their next step.
  • It feels like a classroom where feedback is normal, reflection is routine, and learning is visible.

At the heart of this vision is the powerful partnership between goal setting and self-assessment. These two practices, when grounded in metacognition and learner identity, can transform your classroom culture from compliance to agency.

Why Goal Setting, Self-Assessment and Reflection  Must Go Hand-in-Hand

Setting goals is one of the most powerful metacognitive strategies students can learn. But even the clearest goal loses traction without the ability to monitor progress, reflect on strategies, and revise course. That’s where self-assessment and reflection come in.

Self-assessment empowers students to:

  • Monitor progress toward their goals using success criteria 
  • Adjust strategies through deliberate practice
  • Seek help and feedback with intention
  • Normalize mistakes as opportunities for growth
  • Build confidence, resilience, and efficacy

As Hattie (2023) reminds us, “The power of self-assessment lies in the student’s ability to monitor their own progress.” Self-assessment is how students build self-regulation—and that is the ultimate learning accelerator.

Anchoring Goals in Evidence-Based Practice

Strong learning goals are not vague aspirations. They are purposefully aligned, measurable, and motivating. When supporting students in setting meaningful goals, consider these research-based principles:

1 Align Goals to Priority Standards and/or Big Ideas

Most student goals should mirror school or district priority standards. These outcomes represent the essential learning all students must master. This ensures coherence and equity across classrooms.

🔁 Exception: For students with unfinished learning in foundational skills, especially in K–3 literacy or math, goals should target essential pre-requisites.

2 Focus on Mastery, Not Performance

Mastery goals focus on growth, not comparison. They encourage students to develop skills and understanding, rather than chasing grades or outperforming peers. Research shows this orientation increases motivation and resilience (Ames, 1992; Zimmerman, 2002).

✅ “I want to get better at organizing my writing with clear paragraphs so that I can use my writing to persuade, inform, or entertain. I have to be clear, and I need this in all aspects of my life. 
🚫 “I want to get an A.”

3 Use Clear Success Criteria and Exemplars

Students must know what success looks like. Pair every goal with co-constructed success criteria and models of strong work. Without this, reflection becomes guesswork. Students will need to be immersed in the end so they need a wide variety of examples and non-examples when they are first learning what the “look fors” are for success. 

4 Add Accountability Partners

Each student should share their goal with a peer. Accountability partners help learners stay focused, provide feedback, and offer encouragement during difficult moments. You can even create goal setting huddles where you create and monitor goals with a small group. 

The Metacognitive Cycle: Teaching Students How to Learn

At the core of this work is metacognition, or thinking about one’s thinking. The metacognitive cycle (Plan → Monitor → Evaluate) mirrors the arc of goal setting and self-assessment.

But this doesn’t happen automatically. Students must be taught:

  • How to plan strategically
  • How to monitor progress and make adjustments
  • How to evaluate their growth and revise their approach

And when things go wrong? Teach students that mistakes are not a sign of failure; they are data. They are opportunities for metacognitive insight. The classroom should be a lab for learning through error, reflection, and revision.

Self-Questioning to Strengthen Metacognition

These questions and sentence stems not only guide students through the metacognitive cycle but also provide differentiated support to scaffold meaningful reflection and deeper learning for all students, especially those still developing English language proficiency.

Planning Stage Questions (Set clear intentions and strategies.)

Questions for Self-Questioning:

  • What is my goal or learning target?
  • What strategies or resources can help me reach this goal?
  • What prior knowledge do I already have about this topic?
  • How will I know if I am successful?

Language Frames/Stems (General):

  • “My learning goal is __ because __.”
  • “To reach my goal, I will __.”
  • “I already know __ about this.”
  • “I will know I am successful if __.”

Language Frames/Stems (LEP Students):

  • “My goal is __.”
  • “I can use __ to help me.”
  • “I know __ about this.”
  • “Success looks like __.”

Monitoring Stage Questions (Check and reflect on progress during learning.)

Questions for Self-Questioning:

  • Am I following the steps of my plan?
  • Do I understand what I am learning right now?
  • Is there anything confusing or difficult?
  • Should I adjust my strategy?

Language Frames/Stems (General):

  • “Right now, I am feeling __ because __.”
  • “I understand __, but I am confused about __.”
  • “I need to change my strategy by __.”
  • “I am on track because __.”

Language Frames/Stems (LEP Students):

  • “I feel __.”
  • “I understand __.”
  • “I do not understand __.”
  • “I can try __ next.”

Evaluating Stage Questions (Reflect on learning and strategies after completing a task.)

Questions for Self-Questioning:

  • Did I achieve my goal?
  • What worked well for me, and why?
  • What was challenging, and how did I overcome it?
  • What will I do differently next time?

Language Frames/Stems (General):

  • “I met/did not meet my goal because __.”
  • “The strategies that worked best were __.”
  • “The hardest part was __. I overcame it by __.”
  • “Next time, I will __.”

Language Frames/Stems (LEP Students):

  • “I reached/did not reach my goal.”
  • “__ helped me learn.”
  • “__ was difficult. I solved it by __.”
  • “Next time I will try __.”

Sentence Frames for Written Reflection

Planning

  • “My goal today is to __ because __.”
  • “First, I will __. Next, I will __.”

Planning (LEP Students)

  • “Today, my goal is __.”
  • “First, __. Then, __.”

Monitoring

  • “I am noticing __, so I will __.”
  • “I understand __ clearly, but I need help with __.”

Monitoring (LEP Students)

  • “Now I am __.”
  • “I need help with __.”

Evaluating

  • “Today, I learned __ because I __.”
  • “Next time, I can improve by __.”

Evaluating (LEP Students)

  • “Today I learned __.”
  • “Next time, I will do __ better.”

Learner Identity and the Role of Dispositions

Goal setting and self-assessment don’t exist in isolation. They are powered by something deeper: learner identity—a student’s internal story about who they are, what they’re capable of, and how they grow.

But identity doesn’t grow without support. It is nurtured through consistent reflection, meaningful challenges, and the practice of dispositions—the inner habits of mind that help students persevere, empathize, question, revise, and reflect.

Frameworks like Hawai‘i’s HĀ Breath of Aloha and school-based systems such as the PRIDE Framework (Perseverance, Respect, Integrity, Discipline, Empathy) help define these critical learning behaviors. These aren’t soft skills, they’re the will behind the skill.

If we want students to use perseverance when learning gets hard . . .
If we want students to show empathy during feedback . . .
If we want students to reflect honestly with integrity . . .

. . . then we must teach these dispositions with the same clarity and consistency we use to teach academic content.

Step 1: Build Clarity First

Before students can reflect on or retrieve a disposition, they need to understand what it means. We must make the invisible visible.

Use tools like:

  • Empathy Mapping: “If I’m living out Aloha or Excellence, what would I be thinking, feeling, saying, and doing?”
  • Frayer Models: Define the disposition, identify examples and non-examples, and connect to lived experience.

This helps students develop personal, cultural, and academic meaning behind their learning habits.

Step 2: Use Dispositions for Transfer and Reflection

Once students have clarity, they need time and practice to retrieve and apply the right disposition in the right moment. This is how we build the habit of transfer.

Use reflection prompts like:

  • “Which HĀ or PRIDE disposition helped you meet your goal this week?”
  • “Which disposition do you want to practice more intentionally next time?”
  • “Which disposition might be most useful for this next project or challenge?”

This reflection transforms abstract traits into practical strategies; something students can use and track.

✅ Teacher Moves That Build a Culture of Reflection

Use this teacher self-assessment checklist to ensure you’re creating the conditions for deep reflection and growth:

Focus Area Reflection Question

Frequency
Launch & Co-Construction Did I co-construct success criteria with students for authentic, rigorous tasks? ☐ Yes ☐ NY
Modeling with Think-Alouds Did I explicitly model how to self-assess using success criteria and exemplars? ☐ Yes ☐ NY
Visual Tracking Did I show students how to highlight or annotate their work using the criteria to track progress? ☐ Yes ☐ NY
Exemplar Use Are students using a variety of exemplars (AI, teacher, student, or class-created)? ☐ Yes ☐ NY
Self-Assessment Practice Did I provide structured time and tools for self-assessment? ☐ Yes ☐ NY
Feedback Alignment Is my feedback clearly aligned with the success criteria and students’ goals? ☐ Yes ☐ NY
Goal Monitoring Are students using self-assessment to reflect on their goals regularly? ☐ Yes ☐ NY
Deliberate Practice Do students revise or practice based on their self-assessment data? ☐ Yes ☐ NY
Peer Feedback Integration Did students use success criteria in peer feedback aligned to their goals? ☐ Yes ☐ NY
Reflection & Ownership Are students journaling or speaking about their learning journey? ☐ Yes ☐ NY

 

Routines That Make Goal Setting and Self-Assessment Stick

Creating a reflective classroom isn’t about big changes; it’s about consistent habits:

📅 Weekly Goal Check-Ins

Give 10–15 minutes weekly for students to revisit their goal, celebrate progress, and reset. Use prompts like:

  • “Last week I worked on…”
  • “I made progress because…”
  • “My new goal is…”

🧠 Think-Alouds and Exemplars

Show how you reflect on a model or unfinished work using the success criteria. Highlight where revisions are needed.

✍️ Highlighting & Tracking

Teach students to color-code their work to show alignment with criteria. Let them visually track their growth.

📚 Build an Exemplar Library

Include AI-generated, teacher-created, and peer-created examples. Students should compare these with their own work using the criteria.

💬 Community Circles for Reflection

Use your community circles to ask:

  • What’s working with your goal?
  • What’s been a struggle?
  • What feedback helped you?
  • What disposition or learning habit showed up for you this week?

🤝 Accountability Partnerships

Create peer check-in routines to increase reflection, feedback, and social motivation. I have been on weight watchers for years and have two partners that I connect with to ensure I don’t fall off track. Having a goal partner or triad  is also a really good strategy for students as they learn how to set and monitor their goals in middle school. 

Student Stems for Self-Assessment and Reflection

Give students the language to reflect with purpose:

  • “Success means I can __________ because the criteria says __________.”
  • “This model shows strong __________. I want to work on __________.”
  • “I used a highlighter to show where I met __________. I still need to practice __________.”
  • “I noticed my partner did __________ well. I might try that too.”
  • “A disposition that helped me was __________. I want to keep growing that.”

From Compliance to Culture

When we treat goal setting and self-assessment as one-time events, we miss the magic. 

  •  But when we embed these routines into weekly practice . . .
  • When we root them in metacognition, learner identity, and culturally grounded learning habits…
  • When we invite students to reflect and revise with purpose . . .

We build something greater than skill. We build a culture of ownership. A culture of belonging. A culture of mastery.

Let’s teach students how to plan.
Let’s teach them how to reflect.
Let’s teach them how to rise.

Join the Impact Team movement to ensure metacognitive clarity for all! 

Extra Aligned Resources

References

  • Ames, C. (1992). Classrooms: Goals, Structures, and Student Motivation.
  • Hattie, J. (2023). Visible Learning: The Sequel. Routledge.
  • Vandas, K., & Almarode, J. (2019). Clarity for Learning. Corwin Press.
  • Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner: An Overview. Theory Into Practice, 41(2), 64–70.
  • Bloomberg, P. J., et al. (2024). Amplify Learner Voice Through Culturally Responsive Assessment. Mimi & Todd Press.