This study examines how teachers guide students in setting and achieving self-directed learning goals during Challenge-Based Learning (CBL), uncovering the skills and knowledge required by teachers in this context. Through individual conversations and interviews, teachers mainly utilized students’ written documents to refine and support their goals, emphasizing specificity and actionability, while highlighting the importance of teacher characteristics such as openness, trust-building, and reflective practices in facilitating effective goal-setting and coaching. These findings provide insights to inform teacher training and support, facilitating the integration of goal-setting practices within innovative educational approaches like CBL.

Background information

Educational innovation is part of universities and we expect (implicitly) from our teachers to have the ability to teach in new situations almost immediately. The same holds for Challenge-Based Learning (CBL), were students work in teams on a complex problem and individually on their own skill development, with a lot of freedom to personalize their learning. Goal-setting can help students to direct attention and effort to relevant activities, especially when students set their own, more meaningful goals (Moeller et al., 2012). Guiding students in goal-setting is traditionally often not part of the role of university teacher and require skills and knowledge. Although researchers have provided suggestions, such as one-on-one conversations (Roberts, 2019), the specifics remain unclear.

Aims

As instruction has been found to be effective for students’ goal-setting abilities, we wanted to get insight in: “How do teachers guide students in formulating and executing self-set learning goals during CBL and what do teachers need in terms of skills and knowledge?”.

Project description

The 7.5 ECTS course was based on the CBL learning guide (Nichols et al., 2016) and given in 2022 over a time-period of 10 weeks. Students demarcated in interdisciplinary groups a big idea to a concrete challenge, analysed the problem, and developed a solution. Teachers had three individual conversations for which students prepared a written document with reflections and evidence regarding their learning goals and development. Four teachers guided between
3-5 students each, accumulating to 15 students in total. All teachers identified as female and differed in discipline, teaching experience, and CBL experience. Thirty-minute semi-structured interviews with three topics were held with all four teachers.

Results and conclusion

1. Guiding students in goal-setting: Teachers used students’ written documents mainly for reporting and checking whether the goals were specific and actionable. The conversations were used by all teachers to make the goals more specific and to ask the reason behind setting the goals, how and when students plan to work on their goals, and in the later conversations, discussing goal progress and revision. They furthermore gave suggestions and instruction on how to work on goals and feedback on goals and plans.
2. Teacher characteristics: The teachers with more teaching or CBL experience mentioned being open and building trust, for instance by being non-judgmental or being vulnerable by sharing own experiences and weaknesses. Other topics mentioned were the teacher’s flexibility, being genuinely interested in students, and reflectivity, both by stimulating students to reflect, but also teachers to become a better coach.
3. Suggestions and insights: Expectation management, assessment, students’ sense of ownership, and coaching as a compulsory part of a course were mentioned as difficulties. Concrete suggestions were refreshing conversation skills, sharing experiences in a teacher community of coaching, and having time and mental capacity for each individual student.

The results can be used to explicitly train and inform teachers about their different role and help them develop these relevant skills. It could furthermore help match protentional teachers to innovative courses like ours, by attracting open and learning-orientated teachers.

References

• Nichols, M., Cator, K., & Torres, M. (2016). Challenge Based Learner User Guide. Redwood City, CA: Digital Promise.
• Moeller, A. K., Theiler, J. M., & Wu, C. (2012). Goal setting and student achievement: a longitudinal study. The Modern Language Journal, 96(2), 153-169. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2011.01231.x
• Roberts, K. M. (2019). An analysis of autobiographical tools in written reflection: implications for teaching critical thinking and goal-setting, Reflective Practice, 20(2), 201-217, DOI: 10.1080/14623943.2019.1575196