Setting Weekly Intentions

Use a journaling template to help students establish goals and reflect on their progress.
Ages 11-18 / 15
min Activity
Mindfulness
Self-Care
Self-Awareness
Writing

Objectives

  • Participate in a weekly journaling exercise that focuses on goal-setting, time management, and self-assessment

Supporting Research

When students engage in reflective journaling, research shows an improvement in their behavior and coping skills, critical thinking, and understanding of their own experiences and emotions. During this activity, educators should encourage students to reflect on the past week, including any accomplishments, setbacks, and moments of joy and gratitude, and plan for the upcoming week around any personal or academic goals that they want to achieve, and actions that will help them in reaching these goals. This routine helps reinforce students’ mindfulness, self-awareness, and self-care as students understand and express their feelings, behaviors, and needs, fosters their executive functioning skills, and supports a healthy growth mindset. 

To learn more about these skills, and how they promote students’ healthy growth and the development of empathy, please check out our Empathy Framework.

Materials

Activity Partners

No items found.

Instructions

  1. At the beginning of each week, set aside 10-15 minutes for students to complete the "Setting Intentions" journaling template. This resource guides them through setting goals for the week and breaking them down into more manageable tasks, planning for any potential obstacles, and reflecting on successes and challenges from the past week. 
    ‍
  2. Throughout the week, make time for students to revisit their weekly intentions and reflect on their progress towards them, or ways that they might need to adapt their approach towards achieving them. Encourage students to reach out if they need any support or resources from you.

If students in both classes have individual devices (e.g., mobile phone, tablet, laptop, etc.)...

Use a platform such as Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams which allows you to screen-share during a video call. 
One educator should set up the Kahoot! game and share the code with students in both classes by following this tutorial about using Kahoot! in a remote learning environment, and share their screen so everyone can follow along.

If students in either class don’t have individual devices...

Follow the same instructions above, with one educator starting the game and sharing their screen so both classes can follow along.  
Instead of students joining the game to answer the questions, they can hold up their fingers, call out their answer, or use a paper template to indicate their response.

If you prefer not using Kahoot!...

Use this document (Spanish version) to prompt students.