Co-Creating Graduation Plans with Credit Mapping

Context

Credit mapping at Bronx Arena involves a teacher or Advocate Counselor and student working together, at the beginning of each semester, to build out a concrete plan to accomplish their long-term goal of achieving 44 credits and passing five Regents exams by graduation (set forth by NYC Department of Education). The goal is for the conversation to be student-led in order to give them ownership of the plan, as well as investment in their short-term and long-term goals. With counsel from an educator, students are able to identify the credits they have accomplished, what credits they still have left, and a step-by-step plan or map to graduation. For instance, a student may want to achieve 20 credits by the end of the year and will have to determine how many credits they should aim for in one month, one semester, and beyond.

The important piece of this strategy is not the Credit Map itself, which can always be adjusted, but rather the process that students go through to connect daily actions with short-, medium-, and long-term goals. Students build a Credit Map to identify their path to graduation, set annual goals for what they want to complete each year to get there, and revisit their goals monthly. During monthly goal-setting, students make adjustments, reflect on their learning, and see how their daily actions help them meet those goals. The entire process helps students practice how to take smaller steps to build self-efficacy and figure out ways to accomplish bigger goals through smaller, actionable ones.