KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our session today, Goal Setting and Targets. We're going to be looking at some general goal setting exercises and then something specific to the work that you're doing in the next couple of years. 

So my name is KayLynn Hamilton. Next slide, please. And those of you who were on the webinar a couple of weeks ago about partnerships may remember me. I am an associate teaching professor at Penn State, but my primary role is to support our 35 adult education providers throughout Pennsylvania in meeting the requirements of WIOA as well as career pathways, integrated education and training, and any kind of innovations and interventions that relate to workforce development. 

So I'm very excited to be here again today. I think that the last time we met, we had a great session. We had a lot of interaction, and I'm looking forward to that for today as well. 

So just a couple of things before we get started very, very informal. So please, if you have a comment or if you have something that you would like to add or a question, you can either put it in the chat box, and staff is going to be helping me to monitor the chat room. 

And then also, if you would just prefer to unmute yourself and just say, hey, can I make a comment or something? We'll be glad to do it that way as well. Actually, that's the way I prefer to do it because it's hard for me to monitor the chat and stay engaged with you at the same time. So please, feel free. 

We will have one breakout session about midway through the presentation, and we're also going to ask for you to comment on some things that you'll see and questions that we have throughout the presentation, and your responses again can be verbal or put them in the chat room. 

So what are we going to do today? What are our objectives? Let's go to the next slide please. So today we're going to review how to incorporate the results of the needs assessment to help to write clear and measurable goals, identify some components of well-designed goals, explore creating action plans related to well-designed goals, develop a plan to intermittently examine goals for target achievement. 

Again, goal setting is revisiting an iterative process. And then finally, we're going to take a look at how to determine when and how to use data to revise our goals. Next slide, please. 

So we're going to start with a little fun activity, a little icebreaker, so to speak. And on your screen, you'll see an activity. We'll just leave it at activity. So what I'd like you to do is think about what you see going on in that picture. So sometimes when we're looking at-- we all perceive things differently. So when we're looking at setting goals and targets, we're also all looking at that differently. And you may want to be looking at the big picture and the small details, and then what's going to matter the most? 

So we're going to start by taking a look at this particular photo which actually comes from the New York Times series, What's Going On? We have our adult programs use this to help with writing prompts, to help with discussions, classroom discussions, for language learners. So it's a site that we use for these particular purposes. 

So what kinds of things do we see? And we can either just, again, write things in the chat or unmute your speaker. What are some of the things that you see going on in this photograph? So nobody's writing in the chat, so how about if somebody unmute themselves and let's just get the ball rolling with what they see going on? What do you see? 

SPEAKER 1: I see a young man caring for a litter of kittens, feeding them, and transporting them. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, you focused on the kittens. What else do we see? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: We do have some things coming in in chat. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, and can you help me with those please? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Yeah, so Kelly Henwood says it's some chaos. Maryanne says, child appears to be feeding cats at a park, maybe rescuing them. David says, kitten parade. Kathy Kylie, a dish of money. Cherie Watkins, a kid bringing a kid-- no, video games, or a kid being a kid. Kathy Kylie again, maybe for helping take care of the cats. 

Rachel Moderna says-- oh sorry, it skipped on me-- people relaxing in the park. Thatcher Weldon, community members hanging out together. Melissa Boyd, observant onlookers. Neil Kelly, Ruth Bader, Ginsburg lives, Kim Haglund says the man has a cane and is sitting on the bench watching . Wendy Miller, this exercise is not friendly to low-vision individuals. Dana Galloway, adult observing a child playing with cats. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, and yeah, so we saw a lot of detail. We saw a lot of detail about the cane, the kittens, and a lot of things going on. Some folks seem to look at the big picture and some were more focused on detail. 

And honestly, I've looked at this picture numerous times working on this presentation. I didn't realize that kid was playing with a box full of kittens, that young boy. I didn't realize that those were kittens. I knew that there was a big cat and saw the tender vittles, but I hadn't really focused in on him playing with the kittens. 

So how does this relate to goal setting? So if we're looking at the big picture-- and we could describe this big picture as something like a day in the park, people enjoying the outdoors-- and if we start then to look at, well, what details are there to support that? And that's what we're trying to do with the analogy here with this. 

The supporting details are the folks sitting on the bench, the young boy playing with the kittens, the bike, the parade. Those are supporting that in general. We can even dig a little deeper with even more detail which we heard about the gentleman on the bench with the cane. 

So we can see the levels of detail in this picture, and that's one of the ways that we're going to talk about goal setting today and how you can start with the big picture and then move along to help to look for information or data that supports that big picture and helps to clarify those goals. Any questions or comments? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: We have one coming in from the chat. It says from Neil Kelly, me and Caroline sitting on the bench trying to figure the CAEP cat-like structure out. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, so somebody made that really relevant to the work that they are doing, trying to be pensive about what we're actually doing. And yeah, we don't actually know what those two folks on the bench are thinking about. Maybe it's the California goals. Maybe it's the cat parade. But we'll go with the California goals. That's more suitable for our discussion today. Next slide, please. 

So in a nutshell, here's what you're going to be doing over the next few years. You're going to work on your assessment. You're going to then set goals. Then you are going to reassess and then you're going to adjust based on what you have accomplished prior. 

Now, we're going to use this analogy that we use with the opening break-- sorry, the icebreaker as we move forward. So our next slide is going to show us that now we can start to dig-- next slide, please. We can start to dig a little deeper into the details. 

So for this year, you're going to assess and set the goals, which is what we're doing. Going to begin to implement the three-year plan, create annual plan strategies, identify plans of action to increase student outcomes, select annual plan strategies for work plan, and then look at the budget available to address the work plan strategies. So if we start with the big picture, again, thinking about that analogy with what we looked at, this is how we're going to start to break it down. Next slide, please. 

So moving forward for 2023 and '24 and then 20-- that's hard to say-- 2024 and '25, we show some of the activities or some of the moving forward assessments and adjustments that you're going to be expected to do so. So evaluate the previous year's outcomes and strategies, reassess goals, and adjust as necessary, generate annual plan strategies, identify plans of action to increase student outcomes, and then budget available funds to address your work plan strategies. 

Forward from that, the following year-- so as we're moving forward, we want to continue to keep our eye on the prize. We want to continue to have forward motion in the work that we're doing. 

We're going to evaluate the outcomes and the strategies from the year before, generate again annual plan strategies, identify plans of action to increase student outcomes, budget available funds to address work plan strategies, and then start all over again, start mapping out the next three-year plan. So it's setting goals, looking at data, reassessing the goals, and deciding what works and what doesn't work. Next slide, please. 

So a recap of the needs assessment, and I'm going to talk about certain parts of the needs assessment, and then I'm going to ask for your reaction to some of that. So the regional collaboration provides capacity for K through 12 and community college adult education programs to, number 1, find common ground and cross historical, geographic, and cultural boundaries to provide adult learners more robust education and training opportunities and expand and improve the quality and reach of adult education ultimately by-- and we see a nice little list on the screen-- 

Improving literacy skills; immigrant integration; completion of high school equivalency or high school diplomas; completion of post-secondary certificates, degrees, or training programs; placement into jobs; and improved wages. So the plans could consider the full range of services required to achieve these outcomes. 

So let's take a minute and talk about what we see on the screen in front of us. Where are you finding the most challenges? What seems to be an area that is the most challenging? Where are you finding difficulty, or not even finding difficulty, but what challenges do you perceive with this work? Again, you can unmute yourself or something in the chat area. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: OK, KayLynn, we have some things coming in the chat. Kelly Henwood says, besides COVID overload, culture change. Thatcher Walden says tracking F and E. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, tracking and finding documentation to actually document what we're saying is going on. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Melissa Boyd just added, different needs for different members. Dana Galloway, how to assess measure and keep track of progress in these areas, especially the work-- I think, place. Where the work piece is what was said, but I think it's the workplace. 

Kim Haglund chimed in and says, though we have resolved a lot of the issue, finding common goals has been difficult. We ended up using lost goals and program evaluation to start, which enables us to leverage our resources. Beth Cutter says, I agree with difficulty tracking E and F, also having the time to evaluate as a consortium. A lot of it is at the agency level. 

Melissa Boyd says, having timely data. Kim is agreeing with Dana, and then Kristi Gascon says, agreeing with Kelly. Many more students are requesting hybrid and online classes, and in-person, which has always been our norm is the least requested. And then Eileen Steer, time. Her comment is time, there are not enough hours in the day to get back in school, getting students, et cetera. 

Marianne says, currently due to COVID concerns with vaccine mandates, placement into jobs is challenging. We use our workforce board for this, and they are having better success but still see the challenges. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, thank you. Thanks for helping out by reading that list. So I'm going to just respond to the last one that came up, Mary Ann's response about job placement. So one of the things that we talked about the last time that I met with you folks-- and we're not going to spend a lot of time talking about that last session because some of you were on and probably some of you were not. 

But relying on our partners to help with this, so we have the capacity for K through 12 and the community college adult education programs to be responsible for these outcomes. However, wherever there are opportunities to partner with other community agencies, particularly the workforce development system with some of these, it serves us all well. 

It's a win-win for us because we're able to meet our outcomes, but it's also a win-win for the workforce boards and the one-stop so that they can also meet their outcomes by providing the services that they do best. 

And we also heard from a couple people that said the challenges associated with COVID, the pandemic, have created a new set of challenges. It's difficult enough to do the work that we do, but inserting the challenges through the pandemic, and now I'm not sure who mentioned it, but now not even so many students that even want to come to your classes. It's not that they don't want to access your services, but they don't actually want to come to your classes because they prefer for whatever reason to do work remotely or maybe some hybrid work. 

So it wasn't that the pandemic opened a Pandora's box. It opened a box of more opportunities not just for our students but for us as well, for the entire community. There have been along with the challenges that the pandemic has presented, there have also been opportunities for all of us. 

Can we quote you on the importance of partnership with the local workforce development board? Well, you can quote me in Pennsylvania. That is the work that I do. We have strong partnerships with our workforce development boards. There's a smiling face. OK, so then I wasn't sure if that was a Gotcha moment or not. 

But yeah, we strongly rely on coalitions with our workforce development system led by adult education providers, not just with the boards, but the one-stop as well, with the one-stop doing the work, the day-to-day work, the front line work, and the Workforce Development Board providing the funding and providing the structure around it. OK, got it, got it. I'm having a one-on-one conversation in the chat room. Any other comments before we move on? 

This is anecdotal, but it seems like we're competing for the same folks that employers are trying to find and hire. Here in tech ed, if a potential student can get hired and trained by an employer, then they bypass our training programs. Yeah, that is unfortunately the case, and many times it is down the road where folks will finally realize the importance of coming to an adult ed program or training program because my experience has been-- 

And we've seen this in Pennsylvania. We had a big natural gas boom in the northern part of the state. Well, across the state different, different part. It was called the Marcellus Shale. You may have heard of it. You may not have. But it's a big gas boom. And the gas companies were hiring people without a high school diploma at a lot of money, $60,000 to $75,000 a year for 18-year-old kids to quit school to go up and do that work. 

And what happens with that kind of work-- also, the boom is no longer a boom. It's not a bust, but many people have lost those jobs. But also, there are many times there's not room for advancement. So you can typically-- and this is a big generalization-- get a job with low basic skills in some sectors, but there's not necessarily any room for advancement. 

So once folks find that out, then they'll come back many times to access the services of adult basic education to help them increase their skills or to help them to get that high school equivalency. But sometimes it's a hard lesson taught because they're working, which is what we want them to do, but we want them to live the best lives that they can, and that is not necessarily through an ongoing entry level job. 

So Melissa said, related to Eric's comments, need for apprenticeship, so hard to make apprenticeship. Yeah, apprenticeship is a tough area to crack open and to find a way in there for adult basic education. We primarily look at pre-apprenticeship programs that are connected to apprenticeship programs that provide us an entry into that very, very important workforce development strategy. 

But where there are opportunities for apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship, it is an ideal place for us to take away that old definition of what adult education may be, which is helping people acquire a high school equivalency, or a GED, or a high school diploma, and put us into really a bucket of workforce development partners as a stronger piece of the definition for what we do. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: KayLynn? 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Yes? 

SPEAKER 2: Can I come in here and just make a comment on what you said about big companies offering a lot of jobs initially, and then like you said, there might not be a room for improvement or advancement? 

And I think that is a good point to make, that if we see-- if the paradigm shift is that we are not competing with our workforce development but that it's great that they're serving our community, they're employing our residences in our communities, and yet to let them know or to partner with them, let them know, we're here as an adult education. 

So if their workers are ready for more advancement from low-skilled, to semi-skilled, to highly skilled, we're there to provide for that. And I think that's the beauty of collaboration with our workforce development. So just a short comment there for what you were saying, and I agree. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Yes, I appreciate what you're saying. For so long, we have been and in some places continue to be an entity of its own. For lack of a better word, we hear it over and over again, a silo, and we do our work with a very narrow focus because this is what we do. 

But when we can break down those walls and become actually a contributing and a benefiting member of the workforce development system-- it's not all give, give, give. It's also, what are you going to do for me? 

SPEAKER 2: Exactly, I agree. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: What we can get out of that and what we can contribute to that makes a world of difference when we look at a workforce development system versus a work four or five different entities that sometimes meet once a month to update each other on their programs. 

So we need to move on because we have a lot more to discuss today, but I appreciate all of the comments and all of the thought that went behind the chat and the contribution. Thank you. Next slide, please. 

So what are some of the considerations when evaluating the needs assessment? What are some of the barriers? So be aware of unconscious barriers related to different populations-- English language learners, those with low literacy, low income, long term unemployed. Identify past successes for specific populations. Be innovative and try new things. 

And I'm going to just mention those barriers. So WIOA, one of the things the WIOA did was it created a priority of service bucket. The legislation defined people who are in this priority of service who demand-- who are required to get the most attention from the law. 

What you see on your screen, those four bullet points, the English language learners, low literacy, low income, long term unemployed, those describe those priorities of service. Those are the people that whole system is working with. So whoever said that in competition, yeah, we're all working for the same people, but we can all contribute to their successes as well. Any questions or comments? 

Yeah, one of the things also that WIOA Shedd puts an emphasis on is really co-enrollments in the core programs. So while people are involved in adult basic education, whatever program can also help them while they're in this is what we want to do. 

That's why Integrated Education and Training, IET, is so important throughout WIOA because it really tries to encourage those co-enrollments and doing it simultaneously rather than sequentially. So for so long, we thought or we promote people, come to us and will help you get your high school equivalency, and then you can go to community college or get some training, and then go to job placement. 

But WIOA, what it encourages to be done is that those things are done simultaneously through co-enrollment, through strategies like IET, through strategies like apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship. So none of this is done in isolation. Even though we had partnerships as its own webinar, it all works together. It all has to work together in 2021 where we're trying to be a piece of a larger pie. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: There is a question in the chat. Paul Downs asks, what is meant by unconscious barriers? 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Yeah, those are unconscious barriers. We'll just say things that may not be as evident. And sometimes they're not things that are going to be as evident to us as they might be to partners. 

Like in our one-stop, I know that a few years ago, we talked about what we can do for people coming into the one-stop to help them access Title II services. And they were like, well, how are we supposed to know if anybody has low basic skills? How do we know without going through a full-blown assessment with them? How do we know that they would be eligible for your services? 

So that's a good suggestion, Brian, and I think we'll do that in a second. What kinds of things are there that are not so evident to us? And that was one of the things that the one-stop staff wanted to do. Can you give us a cheat sheet that will know somebody has low basic skills, and may not be a good reader, or may not be good at math, that we know that without having to ask them that? 

So yeah, Ryan gave a suggestion. Can we come up with some other unconscious barriers other than those four that are up there? And I think that's a great suggestion. What other kinds of things do we know that our students bring to us that are things we might need to make adjustments for? 

OK, we're getting a waterfall of comments into the chat, so, could somebody help us read some of those? And we'll just do like a laundry list of them. We're not going to be able to do-- 

MANDILEE GONZALES: So I'll go ahead and start reading the first few that have come in-- childcare, transportation, homelessness, flexible schedule, disabilities, social capital, lack of technology for distance learning, bias, and let's see. That I think are all of the bigger buckets. 

SPEAKER 3: Mandilee, if I could, I'll just add one. It says, isn't unconscious bias and institutional racism a huge barrier for our students? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Thank you. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Yeah, and some of those are maybe things that are not universal, and some of them may be things that are universal with the populations that we serve. So that is a good list. And I know that at the end of the session, we'll talk about how you can save what's in the chat so that you can revisit the comments that were made because I know that it's one thing that I like to do, because you always can't capture all the information. 

SPEAKER 2: And we have another comment that came in. Ryan Whetstone, I am very concerned about basic student mental motivation, drive, and grit. Are they supported at home and encouraged? Our family and friends discouraging? 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: These are questions that have been around. I started teaching in the early '90s, and we were asking the same questions. Maybe not to the degree that we're asking them now. It's a different world than it was 30 years ago. But a lot of the same barriers have continued on and on. 

The negative experiences with public education, yeah, they're not coming to us because school is great for them. And some of the things that we see as barriers are pretty intuitive, the low income, we typically don't see wealthy people coming to adult basic education classrooms. Most of our students, even if they're working, they generally are working at modest incomes and maybe in the bucket, like the working poor. So some of those things are more universal than others. 

So yeah, I'm going to-- yeah, we have quite a conversation going on in the chat, and I encourage you to continue that conversation. But we'll jump back to the presentation for a moment. And I think we skipped a slide, so can we go back? Can we go back one slide going beyond compliance? 

Yes, so we want to think about-- we don't want to just be compliance people. Compliance many times is the low bar. So think about how we can not just achieve compliance but excel and exceed expectations with the program that we're doing. 

So are you too focused on what's mandatory and missing the optional components? How will your service approach best support under-served populations? How can you increase collaboration within organizations, and how will you get buy-in from all group members? 

So we talked a little bit about that on our partnership meeting. But I think that we just in the past five minutes talked a lot about that under-served population. So we've made up the list, and now it's always, and then what? And then what? So now we know, but now what are we going to do about it? 

And that's why we're going to continue to talk about setting goals and then collecting data to see if, indeed, those approaches are the ones that make sense for the work that we're doing. Questions or comments? OK, next slide, please. 

So what kinds of questions do you want to consider? And we'll just look across the questions in them of itself. Where are we now? What are our strengths? What do we need to do better? What resources do we have? What partnerships seem to be working well? 

Where do we want to be? How will our learners benefit? How will our partners benefit? How are we going to get there? What's the map look like? What do we need? What resources do we need? Who's going to be able to contribute? How are they going to help? Are they going to help with time, resources? What do they have to contribute? 

And then the million dollar question is, how will we know when we are there? What data are we collecting, and how often do we need to review that data to make sure that we are making forward progress and then determine when we actually have met our goals? Questions or comments? 

So this strategy works well with whatever kind of performance you are trying to set goals for and to measure. So it's not just specific and pinpointed on adult education programming. It can be used as a strategy for whatever kinds of activities you're working on. Next slide, please. 

So you have several tools that are available to you to help you conduct a needs analysis and to help you set goals. So you will see on the screen that is what you have available through your state. Does anyone have any comments about what you see on your screen, anything that you found work well with using those, or will work well, or still examining them? Or where are you with the process? Any comments? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: We don't have anything coming in on the chat. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, all right, so that set the groundwork. Next slide, please. Now we're going to jump into really looking at goals and defining goals. So how do we define a goal? And again, this is going to be probably a review for many of you, some of these pieces that we're looking at. But we hear the term, goal, and many times we think about we know what that means. 

However, it often happens that we have a partial role and are missing some components to make it a true goal. And we're going to talk-- and we're going to spend a few minutes talking about defining goals and then looking at SMART goals, which hopefully will be a review for many of you. It's a strategy that we use in adult education with our students many times. So next slide, please. And if there are things coming up in the chat room, whoever can help to monitor that and let us know when something comes in, that would be helpful. 

SPEAKER 3: KayLynn, I can cover we just had one from Wendy. Many of our students live so close to the edge that the smallest challenge knocks them off their longer term goals. It is hard to plan for strategies that help stabilize their lives, especially when they disappear before we can help. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Yeah, and I don't have an answer for that. That's the age-old question. How do we keep students in our class when life struggles become the priority, which of course they are. Of course they're going to be the priority. 

But how do you help them? Is it helping them to see where adult education fits on that priority list, the options for different delivery systems, whether it's hybrid, whether it is packets of printed materials, whether it is Zoom meetings. Whatever way you're delivering your services that resulted from the pandemic, can that help into these life challenges that our students oftentimes disrupt their learning? But a good observation. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: And another comment that came in from Crystal Robinson, which is why we should provide as much support as possible at intake. So many adult ed students don't get basic educational planning services at intake. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, so how can you then adjust your intake to make sure that is something that is addressed? Again, 30 years ago, when I started working in adult education and we would do intakes, and it wasn't as formal, and we didn't have to capture and collect as much data, and it was much more anecdotal. 

But I remember the one question that I always used to ask is, what's going to stop you from coming to class? I wanted to know what they thought at that time was going to be something that was going to be a barrier. We didn't talk about, what are your barriers? What are the things that-- That was my question to them. What is going to prevent you from coming to class? 

And when it was stated like that, they could talk about it, and then we could do planning at that point. If it was my kids are sick, or I don't have any transportation, we could pinpoint it a little bit differently and start making contingency plans even at that time. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: And we have some more comments coming in. Kim Haglund says, each new student at the college here has an ed plan. All HSD housed and HiSET students at the Adult School have one. And we are launching a shared advisor program to ensure all ESL students at the Adult School also have ed plans. Wendy says to Crystal, I'm at community college, and our, quote-unquote, "intake process" is virtually nonexistent for non-credit students. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, so this may not be the best venue to have that kind of networking and interactive response to things that are obviously of your concern. Obviously, these are things that you see are barriers to student success and which in turn means barriers to you meeting your goals. If your students can't meet your goals, your program can't meet your goals. 

So if we look back at that initial picture, we looked at the big picture, we looked at those people sitting in the park, now we're getting down to that little box of tender vittles. We're getting down to that cane that was sitting on the bench. I don't know if it belonged to the gentleman or if it belonged to the woman, but those are the details. We're getting to those details now. 

Our intake procedures are challenging, what can we do? Because when we get the intakes a little bit better, then what's the level above them may get a little bit better, and then what's above that gets a little bit better. So you can see how that analogy is very much on target with our discussion today. 

So on our screen, again, here's the million dollar question. Who remembers what we call this model from the last partnership session? Anybody remember what we called this, when we looked at the word in the middle and then worked on defining it? I think our word was, collaborate. 

All right, it's called the Frayer Model. It's a way to learn new vocabulary. It's just a different way of learning words and what they mean, where we start with a quadrant, with a definition, characteristics, and then come up with examples and non-examples. So we're using that Frayer model then to look at goals. What are our goals? 

Well, the definition is something you are trying to do or achieve. The characteristics, that should look like something familiar to you. They are specific. They are measurable. They are attainable. They are realistic, and they are time-bound. The S, the M, the A, R, T-- SMART goals. What are some examples of goals, and then what are some non-examples? Yes, it is Frayer, F-R-A-Y-E-R. Not Prayer, Frayer. 

So what are some examples? And we'll just look at that. We'll just look at the list on the right-hand side. Which on that list are examples of goals? Objective, yup, 1, target, yes, 2. Intention, yes, 3. A plan, yes, 4. So the aim, yes, 5. 

And then the ambition, I have that on the example list. That one would fall in the middle because it's a hope and a dream. Those are not examples of goals. Those are exactly what they are. They're hopes and they're dreams. The ambition falls on that wedge there. 

Yes, outcome would be an example, and we can add that to our list for the next time we do this activity, so thank you. Then of course, the non-examples are going to be the idea, the dream, the hope, the wish, the thought. Those are things that are not specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Next slide, please. 

So we're going to be getting ready to create goals, the SMART goals. With a show of your hands, how many of you are familiar with SMART goals? Show of hands, know how to use the hand tool. Yes, it looks like we have a lot of people showing their hands. 

SMART goals is something that I would recommend that you do with your students as well, that they're not just hopes and dreams, that they're actually goals that are achievable and realistic for them. And Holly just put in our chat box the O10 SMART goal video that is in your three-year plan guidance document. So if you haven't looked at that video, we're not going to spend a lot of time on SMART goals, but it is a comprehensive definition and examples of SMART goals for you. 

So we are going to do some interactive activities here for the next couple of minutes. We're going to look at three different goal examples. And I'm going to ask you whether or not they are well-written goals, and we're going to base that on specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Are what we're putting in here actually SMART goals that you're going to be able to see whether or not you achieve them? So let's go on to goal example number 1. Next slide, please. 

Student employment barriers will be identified and addressed to improve transition to employment outcomes. A show of hands, how many of you think this is a well-written goal? I'm not seeing any hands. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: We have some hands coming up. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: We do have some hands coming up. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Yup, it looks like we have four hands coming up, but I think they're slowly coming down. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, so if we had four hands that came up and it looks like we have close to 80 participants, that means a good majority of you do not think it is a well-written goal. Can somebody unmute themselves who does not think it is a well-written goal? 

OK, so Devin says it is not time-bound. Yes, it is not time-bound. We don't know how long this is going to take. How long is this going to take-- six months, five years? It is not specific. It's not real clear. Yeah, it's not clear. I'm not really sure what's going on. One more thing, yeah, Dana says it's not measurable. 

I have no idea. Is this going to be for all students? Is this going to be a percentage of students? How do we know that we've achieved this goal? If we do it for one person, is that achievement of the goal? Maybe, put it in there if that's what you want it to be. 

And the reason we stress these SMART goals so often and we hear about it all the time is because that's the only way we're going to know whether we achieved success. Put it on paper. Put down specifically what you want to measure, and then figure out how you're going to measure it. Let's go on to goal number 2. 

So we want to increase the number of educational hours of long term unemployed participants while reducing the number of weeks of participation before successful transition. Show of hands, how many think this is a well-written SMART goal? Hey, do we have any hands? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: I'm not seeing any hands being raised right now. Does look like we have some things coming in the chat. Increase by what percentage? By when? It is an objective statement. Increase the numbers to what? 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Yup, again, it's admirable to do this, but we don't know what's going to be successful. Again, it's not measurable. We don't know how many. We don't know the time frame. So we can make it-- 

These are very close. These aren't bad ideas. But if you put them in one column and put the S and the A, R, T in one column and analyze your goals-- and it's not just an exercise to check off that box. It really is going to help you to know whether or not you're being successful in the interventions that you're doing. This sounds like a really good intervention, but how am I going to know when I get there? Because I don't have a well-written goal. 

And then if we want to look at example number 3, identify the three most common barriers to program participation and establish a partnership to support overcoming each barrier. What do we think of that one? What do we think of that particular goal? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Says here no time reference, not measurable. Quite broad, by when and by whom? 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Yes, a goo observation. So this one starts right off the bat though with a measure. We want to know three. We just need to know three common barriers. But then what? We're not really going to-- it again has pieces of the S, M, the A, the R, and the T, but it's not really clear, what will be used to identify those top three barriers? 

How are they going to identify them? How partners will be identified, or how the partners will support, or how long partners would be involved, or how the program would measure if the barrier is overcome? So it actually starts off strong with those three common barriers and then falls off the cliff. 

So again, SMART goals is probably something that's not new to you, but I would highly suggest with goal setting exercises across the board that you start using or continue to use that method to measure the quality of your goals. Next slide, please. 

So one of the things that we talked about in those goals was measuring success. How do you actually measure success? So when we measure success, it's really a good idea to have quantitative and qualitative data. So quantitative involves numbers. Quantity, sounds like quantity. It sounds like numbers. So if you're thinking about data and quantifying it, that means looking at numbers. 

We can go back just one minute and look at the difference between the quantitative and the qualitative. OK, qualitative is using words. If you want to think of it simply, quantitative is numbers. Qualitative is words. And you can take a moment to look at those definitions. Any questions or comments about anything that we've talked about with goal setting? 

OK, then let's move on into our next slide, which is where we're going to break out into a few different groups. And using SMART, using the Specific, Measurable, Attainable Realistic, and Time-framed analogy to SMART goals, we're going to break into rooms and we're going to write two goals, two SMART goals, one focusing on EFL gains and another one focusing on transition. 

So we're going to break into rooms. You'll have a facilitator in your room, and I'm going to ask the facilitator to be able to come back when we come back from the breakout and just give us one of your goals, either the EFL gains or the focus on transition. However, I'm going to ask you to make sure that you come to consensus within your group that they are indeed SMART goals. Any questions about the activity? OK, so we'll set the timer for 10 minutes. We'll reconvene at about 9:32. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: And I'll go ahead 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Is that 10 minutes? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Yeah, it's about 10 minutes. I'll open up the breakout rooms if my facilitators can just hold back until I can get you into your proper breakout room. So here we go. You'll see a Join button. Just go ahead and pop on over. 

SPEAKER 4: Can you assign me? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Yes, I'm going to go ahead. Everyone, let's see, assign. You know what? Stand by one second. It did not throw people in. OK, here we go. There we go. Holly, can you come off mute for one second? 

SPEAKER 5: Yes. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Go ahead and join-- I'm just relocating. I think you can go ahead and join. Your breakout room is-- 

SPEAKER 5: Room 4? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Yup. 

SPEAKER 5: OK, I'll hit Join. 

SPEAKER 2: Thank you. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Mandilee, it's KayLynn. I was in a room. I pulled myself out of it because there was already a facilitator in it, and I didn't want to interrupt. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: No, I appreciate that. I just have to go through and find each one of you. So I need to pop you into breakout room 1. I'm just getting your name on the list, so apologies. Stand by. There you are. I'm going to move you to break out room 1. OK, thank you, and I'll start the timer now. 

Welcome back, everyone. As you enter the main room, I hope you all had a good conversation. We'll just wait for everyone to come on back. OK, welcome, everyone. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: That time just flew by. Next slide, please. That is a misplaced slide. So we're going to spend a minute though talking about what was discussed in the breakouts, and I'll start with my report out. 

So we had more of a general discussion. We did not come up with a SMART goal, but what we did do was we actually talked about transitioning, and what that looks like, and what are some of the challenges? So we talked about transitioning to employment, and we talked about transitioning to the community college. 

And we also talked about transitioning within the program, transitioning out of ESL into adult basic ed, transitioning out of adult basic ed into secondary education. And we thought that one might be the one that would have the least amount of challenges to make a SMART goal about because we can do that all in-house. We keep our own data. We know who's moving based on assessments. But we had discussion. 

We had other relevant discussion not just about creating SMART goals. Who else has something? What other facilitator can talk a little bit about what went on in your breakout room? 

RENEE COLLINS: I can talk-- 

KIM HAGLUND: I-- 

RENEE COLLINS: Oh sorry, go ahead. 

KIM HAGLUND: I'm Kim Haglund from Gateway SCV in Santa Clarita, and our group talked about educational functioning levels and created almost a SMART goal. We almost got to all of it. For Specificity, we decided that we needed to decide which program area we're going to focus on. It's going to be an ESL, certain population, the lower level ESL, so we needed to be specific about which group that we wanted to target. 

Then as far as Measuring, we agreed that depends on where you are. It could be CASAS pre- and post-testing for community colleges who are not WIOA II and not using CASAS. It might be the CB 21 course progression data metrics. 

Then whether or not it's Attainable, we looked at percentages. Let's pick a specific percentage. Obviously if it's a hundred percent increase, that's probably not attainable. So we decided that the percentage amount needed to be-- which goes with Realistic also, and that we needed to target a specific area or group to decide whether that's going to be attainable. So we chose ESL just as, in our mind, group rather than workforce prep and other stuff. 

So then we talked about-- let's see, what else did we do? Oh yeah, Realistic, again, we talked about percentage points. And the target is one that's-- I'm sorry, the Timeliness is one that's a little bit different. 

For course progression, if you're going through MIS, you would need to check every semester to see if after the end of the semester, the reporting period to see when if somebody has progressed to the next course level. Then you have CASAS pre- and post-testing, and you have CASAS outcomes that you can use as well. So it depends on which thing you're using. 

Our consortia does it at quarter 2 and quarter 4 because those are the two quarters when we are reporting at the same time. So it depends on what your institution's reporting period is. So that's what we came up with. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, thanks, Kim. And can we have one more example? We still have more to cover this morning. One more example of just your SMART goal. Did any group actually come up with a SMART goal that they are willing to share? 

RENEE COLLINS: KayLynn, I can share for our group. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, great, thank you. 

RENEE COLLINS: Sure, we came up with an EFL gain goal. So using 2021 data as the baseline, increase EFL gains for the ESL intermediate level by 5% by June of 2022. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, yeah, it sounds to me like it's all there. 

RENEE COLLINS: And we decided that we all needed to be in the same room as we were writing our CAP goals and our SIP goals because it might be a faster process. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: So yeah, that's the brain trust is always two heads-- there's a reason that people say two heads are better than one, because truly, even if you think you're doing a good job, somebody else can read something and see something else. And then going back to that initial picture that we looked at, everybody saw different things in there. 

All right, so on your screen now-- thank you for spending the time in the breakout rooms. I hope it was beneficial. I think it was for our group. So looking at what we have, the needs assessment identified the following, and you can see what that is. And there is a goal that we came up with that identified that work with that information we were giving. 

Just read it for a moment. I'm not going to read it to you, but read it for a moment. And then is there anything in that goal that would help to make it more SMART, or is there anything in it that doesn't really align to what the needs assessment has told us? That goal's all about transitioning. Any comments? Everybody thinks it's good? I think it's pretty good. 

All right, so we're not going to spend a lot of time sitting here in silence, but it's an example then of something very realistic to what may be something that shows up on your needs assessment of how you're hitting each of those bullets with one goal. OK, next slide, please. 

So now that we've established some goals, how do we get there? And I am big when I do my training and technical assistance with our programs, big in writing action plans, and big in writing action steps because we can see progress. So it's always a good idea to break a goal into action steps. How do your goals and action steps support the student's adult education journey? 

And so you want to plot out a timeline and have action steps that are clearly defined, determine how you're going to review those action steps with partners if partners are indeed part of the plan, and then how are you going to celebrate success and how will you make adjustments if they're needed? Next slide, please. 

So when we're looking at creating goals and breaking down the goals into manageable action steps, keep the student journey in mind. Remember, that's the whole idea of all the work we're doing. How are we helping our students? After all, the purpose of setting these goals is to help adult learners be more successful in meeting their own personal goals, whether they're academic, or career-related, or just basically personal goals. 

So we can see the progression that was provided to you in your materials from student characteristics, to progress, to transition, to success, and then employment and earnings. Next slide, please. 

So we want to talk a moment about the importance of monitoring progress and then achievement. You can do this by anticipating obstacles. What is going to come in the way? What's going to be that monkey wrench that's going to get us off track? And then what are some potential solutions when that's going to happen? 

Like when I said when I talked with my students and I'd say, what's going to prevent you from coming to class? And then we could start to troubleshoot those. If this does happen, what are some things we can do to help to mitigate that as a barrier for you? Consider who will monitor and assess programs, and then determine how progress will be shared with others. Next slide, please. 

So this is one of my favorite slides. It's putting the cart before the horse. Don't put the cart before the horse. Identify your metrics first. You have two required metrics related to percentage of funds spent and number of adults served who become participants. You also have other metrics to choose from in addition to the required ones. 

Once metrics are clear, then you're going to want to define your targets. Targets are like your cart, and they should not connect-- I'm sorry, and they need to connect to the metrics. Then once you have targets defined, you can discuss strategies, activities, and intended outcomes that are all connected to the target. 

For example, if you were to address the ELL population, would you want the targets to increase or decrease annually in '22, '23; '23, '24; '24, '25? And once you clearly define that, how would you do that? What are your strategies, and what are your activities, whether they're outreach, whether they're recruitment, whether they are students within your own program? And how will when you've hit the target? That's your intended outcome. 

So I think that the graphic, the cart before the horse, really helps to show, and it's a great graphic. You're going to get these slides, so feel free to use that with the work that you do. Really shows how it's important to keep things in the right order. Any questions or comments? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: So we do have a comment in the chat box from Jody Snyder. Says, I actually read the two hours in class exploring training options as an action step in that goal. Where am I off? 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, so that is specific to the work that you're doing. Does somebody want to respond to that? Can anybody help to respond to that? Oh, you're talking about the example that I gave? OK, I misunderstood. I misunderstood your comment. 

SPEAKER 8: Sorry, I didn't type quite fast enough to get in there when you were asking, what do you think of that goal? Just to me, it sounded more like an action toward the goal of what was identified there. So I was just trying to figure out how to differentiate between actions and the goal. Do you see my question? 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: I do now, yeah. I do now. I thought you were asking about something specific to your program. I do see it now. 

SPEAKER 8: No, I'm going back to your goal for that example, sorry. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: So that probably is not necessary to be in there. I think sometimes when we're writing goals-- I know I shouldn't say sometimes. I know for me when I'm writing goals, sometimes I put too much information in and start getting into the action steps by saying, I'm going to do this by doing blah, blah, blah, which is what this is. This is the how. This isn't just the what. 

So yeah, so it wouldn't necessarily need to be there. It goes down. It's starting to cascade down into the action steps and into the what's. So yeah, no you're not on, good observation. 

SPEAKER 8: OK, thanks. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Yup, anything else? Anything about the cart and the horse? OK then, next slide, please. Let's see. OK, so you want to keep in mind that you may have other people from outside your organization both formally and informally assessing the progress of your goals. How will you get feedback from others, and how will you use that feedback to help make decisions related to your goals? 

Think about how partners monitoring your goals can be helpful. Consider planning for times to communicate your goal progress with other stakeholders. Have your adult learners provide feedback that is related to your goals. So those are some examples of ways that you can get external input into making progress. 

Don't ever discount your learners helping you to inform your goals and your progress toward meeting those goals. They bring a different perspective than partners, even if you're considering them partners-- and they are partners, but they're bringing in a different perspective as the recipient of your services. 

So I always like to encourage people to include students on advisory boards, not post testing, but exit interviewing with students. Find out what works for students. Find out what makes sense for them and what are things that you may want to duplicate or things that you may think were going to be good ideas but actually didn't resonate with the students. Next slide, please. 

OK, sometimes you will meet your goals, and celebrate that success, and set new goals. Other times you'll need to revise your goals. Some internal reasons your agency may need to revise goals are that data is showing slow or no progress or your student population has changed. 

Staff changes are not a reason to change goals. I'm going to say that again. Staff changes are not a reason to change goals. Set your goals, and staff needs to work the way that you're expecting them to work to meet those goals. Your agency should anticipate change and have a plan ahead of time on how to stay on track with goals even if there are staffing changes. 

Maybe I told you this or maybe I didn't tell you this. The project that I worked for at Penn State is funded by our Department of Education. It's a WIOA adult education state leadership project. And when we write our proposals, one of the questions that we're asked is, OK, what happens if there is staff turnover? How are you going to stay on track? What are you going to do to make sure that this program still runs the way it is expected to be run and the way that you are proposing it to be run? 

So it's not that, oh, we've got a new staff member, and they said they're not going to travel to programs and they're not going to meet people face-to-face. Well, then they're not the right person for that program. So staff should not dictate goals or even how they're being met. Next slide, please. 

So sometimes there are external factors that may cause your agency to have to revise goals. So we talked about internal. Sometimes there are external. Changes in state and federal guidelines and decreases in resources, including funding, could have external reasons to revise your goals. 

Here again, if a partner agency has a staff change, that should not be a reason to revise your goals. Anticipate and discuss this possibility when establishing partner agreements. If a particular partner is not meeting their agreed upon responsibilities, find a partner that will help your agency meet the goal instead of revising the goal whenever possible. 

Don't let the tail wag the dog. We're talking about horses and carts. The other analogy with animals is don't let the tail wagging the dog. Questions or comments? I saw something pop up in the chat room, but it disappeared before I had a chance to get to it. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Yeah, I can read it. So from John Werner, that is a good point as we consider changes in management. How do we support new management and understanding the goals set by the school prior to the new person showing up? 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Yeah, that's a good question. And I imagine that would be something that would be an internal HR job description interviewing technique. People that are coming into staffing projects and existing programs, there are certain things that are set in stone, so to speak, that aren't going to change because a new person is coming in. 

One of those things, for example, is that example that I gave you. The project that I'm working on now is hiring a staff person. We're a person short. We've been trying to put somebody in this position since July 1st. 

One of the questions that we ask is, this job may require travel throughout the Commonwealth, some overnight. Is that's something that you can do? And if the answer is no, then you're not the right person for this job. We're not going to change it. We're not going to change that because that's in our agreement. That's in our proposal. That's what we are expected to do. 

We curtailed or we cut back on a little bit during the pandemic, but now that things are beginning to open up, the expectation is that we're on the road working with these agencies. So it's very clear in our interviewing and in our job description that that's part of the job. That's a requirement. That is a goal of this project. If you can't do it, then you're not the right person. 

So I think a lot of that depends on your agency, and how you hire, and how you orient or on-board different staff members. Anybody else have anything to say about that, any other contributions? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: I'm not seeing anything come up in the chat yet that they could be typing. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, next slide, please. So what are your next steps? OK, so we went through this. This is always part of any conversation that I have. I'm working on some other projects in Pennsylvania, and we're working on revising and developing some new resources around financial aid and the workforce development system. And we're going to do a presentation, and we're going to make a desk aid, and we're going to give people all this information. 

So then what? What is the, then what? Now what are you going to do? Now that you have all of this information, what are you going to do with it? And one of the things that I do with the staff that I work with is, tell me what you're going to do now. Tell me what you're going to do tomorrow. Tell me what you're going to do next week. Tell me what you're going to do next month. 

What are the changes that are going to occur because of what you've learned or the kinds of things that you know now? What kinds of things are different? What kinds of things will make an impact? What are the innovative strategies that you're going to do now? 

So what are some examples? What can you do? Now that we've had this session, now that you've had the other sessions that you work with or partnership work that we did the other week, what can you do differently or what can you do now when you leave this webinar? Can we get three good examples before we close out? Can we get three bad examples before we close out? 

You could do nothing, yup. I don't know if that's a good example or a bad example, but John's saying that is a bad example. Thank you. Yeah, you could do nothing. And we hope that's not the case, but many times it is the case. So Kim-- 

MANDILEE GONZALES: I can read it. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, thanks. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Mason says to incorporate SMART goals if we haven't already in into the annual and three-year planning process. Take a deep breath, visualize the end goal, and write down-- I'm sorry, and write ideas down. Be more specific, deliberate, analytical when setting goals. Create unspecific goals with no timelines. 

And it says, here we go, the state doesn't mandate state-wide targets, so you have lots of flexibility given the current situation. Thank you, Neil. And Kim is agreeing with Dana about being more specific, and deliberate, and analytical. 

Here we go, I have SMART goals in mind as we are analyzing our data. And then Mary Ann says, I'm going to assess our previous schools based on what I learned today and plan to facilitate goal development to better meet SMART as needed, and then look at goals that already exist in other governance or planning documents. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: OK, great, so we have some good ideas floating around. If you weren't sure, think about what you just heard, and I'm going to suggest that you save the chat and take a moment to do that now. And we're also hearing from-- I'm sorry, from colleagues who do the feedback. 

But when we're done here-- we end pretty quickly, so you might miss the chance to download the chat. You can do that by opening up the chat, find the ellipse over on the right-hand side that says Save Chat, and that is where you will do it. 

OK, well, thank you very much. I appreciated the opportunity to work with such good professionals on the other side of the United States, and I look forward to working with you again in the future. Have a good afternoon. Thank you so much. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Thank you so much, KayLynn. We really appreciated having you this morning. And thank you all for participating in the fifth day of the director's event. Please take a moment to give your feedback and the evaluation link that Holly Clarke just popped into the chat box. 

As a reminder again per KayLynn, she very eloquently stated what to do, but just as a reminder, if you do want to keep the chat box, in the chat box, you'll see those three dots. Click on that and then Save Chat. We will share out all of the resources in a Google folder once they are remediated and we have been able to get all of that updated. So we'll share out that link early next week and continue to update that folder. 

Please be sure to join us again later on in about 30 minutes for the Community Asset Mapping. And as a reminder, the Summit 2021 registration is open, so please register if you haven't already. Thank you all again for joining us this morning. Thank you, KayLynn. It was a pleasure as always. And with that, we'll go ahead and close out. Thank you all. 

KAYLYNN HAMILTON: Thank you, bye now. Have a good weekend.