Defined Goals

BEYOND TEST SCORES: ASSESS FUTURE-READY SKILLS FOR SUCCESS

Today’s students need more than content knowledge to thrive in the innovation economy. Your Portrait of a Graduate defines the skills and competencies that students need to develop in order to be successful in school, work, and life. Career-connected deeper learning and project-based learning provide students with the opportunity to build and practice those skills. With Defined Goals, educators have high-quality performance tasks aligned to your district’s Portrait of a Graduate goals and tools to measure and monitor growth toward those goals.

Defined Goals enhances Defined Learning and Defined Careers by providing customized implementation, measurement, and reporting that captures progress in competencies traditional assessments cannot measure. Through authentic, career-connected experiences, Defined Goals demonstrates how students develop and apply deeper learning competencies, offering unique insights into skills like critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and many more. Watch Now >

How it Works

DETERMINE OUTCOMES & METRICS

Through a consultative process, we'll discuss the goals and content areas you want to measure. These could include a Portrait or Profile of a Graduate, a Career and Academic Plan, 4Cs/5Cs, Global Competencies, Workforce or Career Ready Frameworks, or any other initiative. Our expert-guided approach ensures your vision becomes an actionable framework unique to your district's needs. Once your framework is established, we'll collaborate to select projects from Defined's award-winning platforms that align with and support your goals.

CUSTOMIZE CATALOGS & ALIGN TO GOALS

The Defined team works with you to create a catalog of selected projects that align with your scope and sequence. We then customize the rubrics to match your specific goals and the competencies you wish to build and measure. Language and tags specific to your district are added to the rubrics for effective scoring and reporting.

CUSTOM PLANS

Schools and districts also have the option to add custom plans such as a Portrait or Profile of a Graduate to Defined Goals. Defined works with schools and districts to define and analyze skills and performance indicators broken down by grade band and content area to align with their goals to ensure all students are developing key future-ready skills in alignment with school, district, and state-wide initiatives.

ACCESS ON-DEMAND REPORTING

Get immediate insights through our comprehensive reporting. The Defined Goals reports provide real-time data that can be filtered to track progress and measure growth toward your specific Portrait of a Graduate or other initiatives. Our Performance Indicators Report measures student progress in your selected competencies through rubric-based assessment and our Plans Report monitors self-reported student progress toward customized learning goals. Access the data you need when you need it to inform instruction and monitor student development.

Defined Goals Analytics & Insights

See how our enhanced data and analytics can help you unlock insights and leverage our career-connected deeper learning solutions to support student success toward your Portrait or Profile of a Graduate goals.

Read the Research

Learn how Defined Goals helps schools and districts across the country implement and measure skills and competencies students need for future success!

Portrait of a Graduate Handbook: How to Successfully Build and Implement Your Portrait of a Graduate

This EBook draws from a three-year longitudinal study of Broken Arrow Public Schools and provides comprehensive guidance for educational leaders seeking to implement a Portrait of a Graduate framework in their districts. Read the EBook >

Building Tomorrows Skills: Look Fors to Support Defined & Project-Based Learning

View this reflective guide for a comprehensive checklist outlining key indicators of effective project-based learning that incorporates performance tasks, career relevance, and the application of transversal skills in the classroom. Read the Guide >

How PBL Builds Portrait of a Graduate Competencies

In this guide, learn why project-based learning is one of the most effective ways schools and districts embed Portrait of a Graduate goals in their curriculum and instruction. Read the Guide >

Take a look at Defined's Portrait of a Graduate!

A Portrait of a Graduate (POG) is a vision statement that schools and districts create, with input from students, educators, parents, and community members. It describes the desired outcomes of the K-12 system: the competencies and personal qualities students should possess when they graduate, in order to be successful in the world beyond school.

We have created our own Portrait of a Graduate containing eight components that are similar to what's commonly found in school or district POGs. We drafted this model to showcase all the essential skills that Defined helps students build and that Defined Goals can help measure. Our projects are aligned with these kinds of goals and can be used to teach and assess them.

For schools in the beginning process of building their own Portrait of a Graduate, you're welcome to use our model as a starting point or reference. This framework represents the comprehensive set of competencies that our ecosystem supports through authentic, career-connected learning experiences. Dive deeper into our eight POG competencies below!

Portrait of a Graduate

CAREER READINESS

Connects academic knowledge and skills to careers
Shows awareness of opportunities and needs
Uses project management processes
Understands their own values, dreams, strengths, and goals

ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS

Demonstrates disciplinary understanding and use of competencies, practices, and processes
Applies learning to new and unfamiliar contexts
Able to do research and engage in inquiry
Pursues knowledge; eager to continue to learn

INNOVATION & CREATIVITY

Thinks unconventionally; comes up with new ideas
Willing to be flexible and try different ideas or approaches when one does not work
Is entrepreneurial; willing to ideate, create, and take risks
Is inspired; motivated to use creativity and innovate

PROBLEM SOLVING

Finds or identifies problems and thinks critically to analyze them
Persists in seeking solutions
Seeks and finds resources
Tests, evaluates, and reflects on procedures and solutions

CRITICAL THINKING

Recognizes bias and varying perspectives
Evaluates relevance of information
Justifies conclusions with evidence or logic
Uses systems thinking to make connections between ideas and see the big picture

COMMUNICATION

Accurately conveys and receives information to/from others
Demonstrates cultural competence
Understands the audience and communicates appropriately
Uses various modes of communication in order to make thinking visible

CITIZENSHIP

Open to learning about diverse cultures and traditions
Aware of and acts on local, national and global issues
Engages in and welcomes civil dialogue as an opportunity to understand perspectives
Understands how their actions connect to the wider world and takes responsibility for them

COLLABORATION

Contributes actively to shared goals, responsibilities, and decision-making
Builds on others’ ideas; honors differences
Willing to compromise; can use conflict resolution skills
Able to provide and receive feedback

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Why Choose Defined Goals?

Let Defined help you unlock your school or district's potential and empower your students with the knowledge and skills they need for graduation and beyond.

Schedule a call to learn how we can help you meet your goals and put your students on a pathway to a promising future.