Schoolwide Learning Goals

Schoolwide Learning Goals

Much like individual classrooms, schools vary in the types of learning goals they emphasize. As Maehr and Midgley note, “Decisions, practices, and actions that have schoolwide effects are likely to symbolize the purposes and meaning of time spent in a particular school.” For example, some school “streess learning more for its own sake” while “others put special emphasis on extrinsic rewards and competition”

Some school leaders intentionally downplay differences in the relative ability of students and minimize crossstudent comparisons. Instead they communicate to students through their words and actions that effort is valued and that the puspose of learning is “to gain understanding, insight, or skill,” not to outtperform others. When leaders strive to communicate the latter message, they in turn are likely to influence the learning goals that students adopt, and thereby play” a profoundly important role in the determination of the nature and quality of student motivation and learning”

Teachers as well as students are affected by the signals sent out at the school level. School-level policies and practices tend to encourage or restrict teachers’ freedom to implement motivational strategies at a classroom level. In addition, school leaders are influential in creating the psychological climate of the school, which can either support or tear down teacher motivation and morale. In turn, teacher motivation and commitment affect student motivation, and vice versa.