It cannot be assumed that learners will set appropriate goals to guide their work, but the answer should not be to provide goals for students. Such a short-term remedy does little to develop new skills or strategies in any learner. It is therefore important that learners develop the skill of effective goal setting. The UDL framework embeds graduated scaffolds for learning to set personal goals that are both challenging and realistic.

• Provide prompts and scaffolds to estimate effort, resources, and difficulty
• Provide models or examples of the process and product of goal-setting
• Provide guides and checklists for scaffolding goal-setting
• Post goals, objectives, and schedules in an obvious place

Teachers support each student’s ownership of learning by providing clear end of course learning targets allowing students to develop their ability to reflect on their learning, develop their own learning path, understand their learning progression and set goals.

• Track progress visible to both the teacher and student to celebrate growth
• Meet with individual students regularly to discuss student progress, strengths, areas of improvement. Students are clear about what they need to learn or the skill they need to develop in order to get to the next performance level
• Provide students with opportunities to determine and monitor their own learning goals and learning path throughout the year that is clearly connected to end of course outcomes
• Allow students to reflect on their learning and explain what they understand and concepts and/or skills with which they are still struggling