WOOP is a research-proven tool to help students set and accomplish their goals in the classroom and in life. Dr. Gabriele Oettingen and Dr. Peter Gollwitzer partnered with the Character Lab to provide instructional tools, videos, papers organizers, and apps to help teachers learn and use the techniques, and then teach them to students.
WOOP stands for Wish, Obstacle, Outcome, and Plan. The focus of this goal-setting methodology is to:
- Envision a short-term or long-term goal
- Identify obstacles within yourself that can keep you from accomplishing the goal.
- Imagine how accomplishing the goal will make you feel; and
- Develop a plan for accomplishing the goal and how to deal with obstacles.
The site has instructional videos, a one-hour training session for instructors, and a downloadable toolkit and worksheets. There are also WOOP apps for iPhone/iPad and Android devices. The apps are much more limited in providing goal planning tools, so I would not recommend using them until you are comfortable with this goal-setting strategy.
Implementing WOOP in Advisory from Character Lab on Vimeo.
