Now that you have an idea of how your semester will look and when your key deadlines are, you have a timeframe in which you can create SMART goals for interacting with your lecture content. SMART stands for:

Specific 

• What do you want to achieve from your online and/or on-campus lectures? 
• Why are these lectures important to you?
• Who is involved in your lecture related goals?
• Where will you lecture goals take place?
• Which resources/ limits are involved in achieving your goals for lectures?

Measurable 

• What will you measure to assess your progress?  The number of understood lectures? The number of quality notes written during and/or after your lectures?
• Quantify your goal so you will know when you have achieved it!

Achievable 

• Although it will stretch me, is my goal doable?
• Will I be able to attend all of my lectures live (either on campus or through an online learning platform)?
• Do I have some unavoidable commitment whereby I will have to set a goal to catch up on a lecture using lecture recording in my own time?

Realistic 

• Is my lecture goal worthwhile?
• Is this the right time to pursue my goal?

Timely 

• When will it be completed?
• How long will it take to complete?
• What can I do today in the time that I have in order to make progress on my goal?

Using your semester planner, and the resources in this section, try to create a SMART goal that you could insert into your weekly planner. For example, you may have already identified a difficult section in a recent lecture that you want to better understand. Think about the steps that you will take to get a better understanding of that topic using your lecture materials (e.g. for notes, see the next section). Think about how you will incorporate lecture recordings as a step in achieving your SMART goal. To help you do this, watch the YouTube video on the following page (Task 1).

After completing the exercises in this section, you could transfer your SMART goal knowledge to a computer/ mobile app for convenience. Also, remember to add time to your timetable (online or offline) to reflect on your SMART goal progress. Ask yourself what is going well and what you need to change to accomplish your goal. For more information on reflection, see going forward.