Setting Targets For The New Year

Setting yourself goals for the term and year ahead can really help boost your grade potential, and more importantly help you to learn new skills and improve existing ones. How can we set goals that are meaningful?

One of the techniques we use in academia is SMART targets:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable / achieveable

Realistic

Time-based

What does this mean? Well, if I was to look at the feedback for one of my old essays and could see that my tutor had said I need to proofread my work better, deciding my goal for 2019 would be `to proofread better` would NOT be a SMART target. Why? Well it isn`t particularly specific: How will I proofread better? It isn`t measurable. How will I evidnece I am doing it better? It might be achieveable if it was less vague. Okay, it`s pretty realistic that I could definitely try harder to proofread, but it is not time-based, i.e. I have not set myself a deadline to review the target.

So how might I make that target SMART?

Specific - I will improve my proofreading by using the A for Academia blog post on proofing techniques

Measurable - I will check that I use each technique on each of my spring term essays

Attainable / Realistic - Doesn`t sound like too much work does it?

Time-based - I will do this for each of the mid-term assessments in the spring term, the deadlines for which are Feb 24th, March 3rd and March 7th. I will then reassess my proofreading techniques from the feedback I get on these assignments.

TASK: Try to set yourself three SMART targets for 2019.

1. Start by reviewing any feedback you got last term and assess your weaknesses.

2. Then identify three particular areas of growth.

3. Finally, work out how to define three targets that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based.