Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
The purpose of this article is to apprise educators of how incorporating the six
realms from the Ways of Knowing Through the Realms of Meaning (Kritsonis, 2007),
into school improvement and strategic plans to yield avant-garde results for all
educational stakeholders. With a postmodern emphasis, the reader can acquire
exceptional knowledge related to the six realms of meaning, and how ethics, synoptic,
symbolics, esthetics, empirics, and synnoetics can add the lifeblood to educational
planning and learning. A successful organization is at minimum threefold in nature,
where gains are on a continuum for students, teachers, and administrators.
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Defining campus goals is the meat of strategic planning. It is in this stage that
campus leaders turn negative propensities into smart goals. They can even further
positive propensities into more favorable outcomes. They find the most severe areas
of growth or opportunity gaps and set a goal to advance the organization to the next
level. Campus goals could include closing a gap between campus performance that is
below district and state standards. Campus goals can hone in on specific populations
of students who are not meeting their student expectations. Campus goals can also be
put in place to challenge populations of students in good standings to reach higher
heights toward college and career readiness. Depending on the needs of the campus,
goals will vary. An example of this would include indentifying students who are on
the cusp of commended performance, and setting a goal to get more of these students
in that performance range. These goals, specific in nature, clearly indicate the who,
what, where, when, which and why.
Smart goals entail what persons are involved in the goal. The targeted group
could be students within a grade level, sub-population group or students within an
academic area. They entail what the organization wants to accomplish, the specifics
of the desired increase. It tells where the location of the accomplishment will occur.
They set an established time frame to accomplish the goal. It determines which
requirements and constraints may present themselves, and the benefit for reaching the
goal. Smart goals are also measurable. They establish a rubric to measure
progression toward the attainment. It helps the organization reach the desired target
dates. They are quantitative results that the organization plans to achieve. Smart
goals are attainable. They are attainable because educators create them realistically
and belief in their capacity to accomplish them. Educators have faith that they will
reach their goals. Faith is the illumination that comes in going to the limits. Goals
that are high, yet reachable are a great way to challenge an organization. It
accelerates educator’s motivation and serves as the catalyst for change. Time is an
imperative when setting smart goals. It sets a sense of urgency and puts action to the
words spoken. Examples of smart goals are:
Leaders must understand that success of their goals can only be obtained through
exemplary classroom instruction. Effective instruction is instruction that allows
students to construct their own knowledge. It is not a classroom where educators act
as authoritative transmitters of knowledge. It depicts educators and students as co-
constructors of knowledge. The educator is acting as the primary facilitator of
learning, not a sage on the stage. This gives students the opportunity to become
extremely resourceful. Students can pull from their knowledge base, embark on trial
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and errors experiences, and redesign their learning so that it makes sense to them.
They can bring their own creativity into the learning environment, providing them a
sense of autonomy centered on their educational endeavors.
When strategic goals have been put in place to provide a map for success,
there must be supporting strategies in place to assist in accomplishing those goals. “A
map is a formal representation of an area” (Kritsonis, 2007, p.176). Strategies tell us
how to achieve our goals. Strategies should exist for each smart goal created. They
serve as an objective for the goal. Strategies to achieve goals can involve budgetary
considerations. Leaders have to allocate and utilize funds to bring progression into
fruition. If a goal in the plan is to increase student performance in science, the leader
must reserve and spend funds toward that area of need. The expenditures should have
a direct impact on science advancement. The resources could be allocated for the
purchase of Gateway Science books that are highly aligned with the Texas Essentials
of Knowledge and Skills. Resources could be allocated for the purchase of one
Purple Cow per classroom to show science action clips to students. Resources can
also be used for the purchase science notebooks for each student to document his or
her learning over time. Strategies to accomplish goals can entail soliciting and
building more community partnerships to support the attainment of goals. A goal
may be to increase student achievement through increased parent involvement.
Business partners may assume the responsibility of hosting events periodically to
attract parents to the campus. A third example of a strategy to accomplish smart goals
could be to develop special programs to meet the needs of students who are
underserved. If results show that Hispanic students are not performing up to par in
mathematics, interventions should be put into place to remedy this problem.
Concluding Remarks
REFERENCES
English, F.W. (2003). The postmodern challenge to the theory and practice of
educational administration. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas
Publisher, LTD.
Klages, M. (2007). Literary theory: A guide for the perplexed. Retrieved July 22,
2009, from the Continuum Press Web site: http://www.colorado.edu
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