Personalized Learning Targets are specific, actionable steps that support a student's bigger goals on Cambly. Students can see, edit, and track their learning targets directly from their own dashboards. When targets are clear and specific, students can feel their progress more concretely — which helps with motivation and rebooking.
Targets can be set by Cambly automatically or by you during a lesson. You can only edit a student's targets from within the classroom, either through the first lesson kickoff slide or the Learning Targets tool.
First lesson kickoff slide
At the start of a first lesson with a Pro student, a slide appears with their profile, goals, and any learning targets — a useful starting point for your kickoff conversation.
- If targets are already set: Use them to guide your conversation. You can update them in the Learning Targets tool if anything needs adjusting.
- If no targets are set yet: Focus on getting to know your student through a kickoff conversation. Cambly will send them personalized suggestions after the lesson ends, based on the lesson transcript.
Note: Targets marked "Suggested" have been generated by Cambly and have not yet been accepted by the student.
Note: This slide opens automatically when you meet a Pro student for the first time and they don't have a curriculum loaded for the lesson. If a student has selected a curriculum, that will load instead.
How the tool works
If the student does not have learning targets, Cambly uses the student’s first lesson to generate suggested learning targets. Once received, the student can accept or revise them. If you are in a lesson with a student whose targets are marked “Suggested”, then their targets haven’t yet been accepted by the student, and you can save them on the student’s behalf using the Learning Targets tool while you are together in the classroom, or the student can accept them from their own dashboard.
If you choose to open the tool to manually set a student’s Learning Targets, it shows you key information about your student, including their English level and their reasons for learning English, if available. Some students skip this during sign up, so some or all of this may be missing.
To generate a student's learning targets:
- Click Set learning targets under the Goals section.
- Review the Objective section, which shows the reason(s) the student selected for joining Cambly Pro at sign up. The tool will suggest helpful questions based on these reasons.
- If the student provided reasons at sign up: Review them together. You can edit or remove reasons at any time.
- If the student didn't provide reasons at sign up: Work together to select them. The tool will then suggest questions you can use to learn more.
- Use the Notes box to keep track of what the student wants to achieve. These notes are not saved and not visible to other tutors — they're only used to generate target suggestions.
- Click Suggest learning targets. If you'd like different options, click Suggest more learning targets.
- Click Add next to any suggested target, or write your own.
- Click Save and share. This saves the targets to the student's profile and sends them to the student as a message from you.
Reviewing and updating existing Learning Targets
If a student already has targets set, you'll see them when you open the tool. You can check that targets are still accurate and update them at any time.
To update targets, click Edit learning targets. Add notes, generate new suggestions, and select or write updated targets the same way as above. Click Save and share when done — the updated targets will be reflected on the student’s dashboard as well.
Accessing targets with existing students: You can view and update any Pro student's targets at any time during a lesson. Open the student profile panel in the classroom and click View targets. The tool won't open automatically for students you've had lessons with before, but you can always open it manually.
Periodic check-in reminders: Every few lessons where you send a student feedback, a slide will appear prompting you to review their targets together. Goals change over time, and it's a good opportunity to make sure their targets still reflect what they want to work on.
Things to Keep in Mind
Targets are visible to other tutors. When you set or update a student's targets, other tutors can see them too. This helps ensure consistency across all of the student's lessons. Only write information you're comfortable sharing with everyone.
Viewing targets before a lesson. You can see a student's current targets on their profile page before a lesson begins.