It cannot be assumed that learners will set appropriate goals to guide their work, but the answer should not be to provide goals for students. Such a short-term remedy does little to develop new skills or strategies in any learner. It is therefore important that learners develop the skill of effective goal setting. The UDL framework embeds graduated scaffolds for learning to set personal goals that are both challenging and realistic.

• Provide prompts and scaffolds to estimate effort, resources, and difficulty
• Provide models or examples of the process and product of goal-setting
• Provide guides and checklists for scaffolding goal-setting
• Post goals, objectives, and schedules in an obvious place