One of my first proximal goals was to create an outline for new Reading Teachers. I’ve had to do this before, but I’ve never put it in writing beyond an email following by a personal discussion. I reflected on two things: 1, the questions and concerns I had and the things I struggled with when I first arrived, and 2, what problems arose when other teachers first arrived and what were they confused by?

I remember when I arrived, I followed the curriculum of the other reading teacher, and it took several weeks to realize how each part of the course was helping students prepare for study overseas. I was lucky that I’d worked with Chinese students in Canada before, so I understood how necessary a critical thinking course is for many of them. I feel it’s a good idea to make this explicit for new teachers, especially since I might not be aware of their familiarity with international students.

Since becoming the senior reading teacher here, I’ve made many changes to the course, and I feel it does a good job of preparing students of many different English levels. I’ve created a possible message to send to a new reading teacher, with the assumption that they will have many follow-up logistical questions, and I will have to go over individual units and lessons with them in person.

There were three problems with my initial goal and monitoring document:

1: It was too distant. I had achievable proximal goals, but they were in service to a goal that involved a few too many steps. The course asked me to focus on my meta-cognition, and I could feel the overwhelming nature of my goal causing me to avoid taking even the first step.

2: My external motivation changed due to circumstances beyond my control. At the beginning of the course, the end of the inquiry project and the first few weeks of classes at my school lined up perfectly. I would have an opportunity to put my planning into action, and to receive student feedback and reflect on each class. Unfortunately, with a 3 week delay at minimum, I could no longer receive any feedback, reflect on my classes, and – worst of all – I struggled to motivate myself without a clear start date to work towards.

3: My end goal was actually outside the scope of the course. I originally thought including my end professional goal for this year was a good idea, but I can see now that it mainly prevented me from moving forward towards a more realistic goal.

This meant that my second monitoring document should 1: create a clearer, closer goal that motivates me and allows me to think it through more easily, 2: not rely on student feedback or reflections on the actual lessons themselves, and 3: be achievable within the timeframe of the course.