When it comes to the education sector, it is imperative that you have a deep intrinsic understanding of your skills and characteristics that define you as a leader. While there will always be a variety of task for you to handle both in and out of the classroom, it is imperative that you try and spend a small portion of your day reflecting on your impact as a teacher. By internalizing and self-evaluating yourself on this level, you will be able to leverage areas where you can improve upon each and every day.
To help you with this, I have outlined ten vital self-reflection questions that every teacher should know how to answer. Some of these questions will be hard to answer. In fact, some of them will take you a few hours to just think about. But by knowing these answers, you will have an even stronger grasp of how you can develop for the betterment of your students.
- What are your goals as a teacher?
- What is your mission and objective as an educational leader?
- How have your student’s invested in your work?
- What do you personally look for in a great teacher?
- What is your teaching style?
- Who do you look up to or collaborate with your lesson plans?
- What continues to empower you with education?
- Provide a time when your leadership and management skills within the classroom were effective? What about a time when it was not?
- How do you track your student’s success?
- How have you improved within the educational field? What skills or traits do you know you need to personally work on?
While these questions may seem simple, you have to understand that many of them look for you to truly understand your overall impact on your classroom. You want to, of course, begin by evaluating your own values, objectives, and goals for your business and for yourself. While in most cases, these values will align. But having a crystal clear understanding of that overarching goal will allow you to strategically devise your lessons plans in a more effective manner.
In addition, a certain amount of these questions, especially questions four and five forces you to assess your own views of an ‘effective’ teacher in a deeper and more productive way. In order for you to grow within the education sector, you have to recognize your strengths and weaknesses as a teacher. By evaluating yourself in this way, you will be able to refine and perfect any mishaps and flaws that you can ultimately utilize to your advantage in the future.
Now to truly be an applicable and impactful teacher, you need to be in a position where you are constantly changing and developing your craft. The latter questions look to seek what you can personally do to grow and evolve as an educator. In many ways, it forces you to strategically think of new avenues and approaches that you can implement in your classroom. Take for example student tracking. While there is not one-size-fit-all approach, effective tracking can help you re-strategize specific lesson plans that can inevitably change your student’s way of learning. Remember, the most successful teachers are those that are constantly asking questions. They are always learning, growing, and pushing themselves to be better than who they are today. Keep questioning yourself. Sooner or later, you will be the veteran teacher that everyone is learning from.
