source: magazine.coffeetalk.com
Still looking for the New Year’s resolution (or change, plan, etc)? Before you jump into the change you want to make, take a look at what you were able to accomplish in 2014.
Take a few minutes (might take longer) and go through your calendar, twitter feed, or Facebook timeline. Using your Social Networks makes it easy to scroll through the highlights (and low lights). Facebook even has a feature that will make a short flip for you or you can customize it.
As you do this, write down a few things so you can put it all in perspective:
- What did you accomplish?
- What were your awesome moments?
- What would you like to do over?
- Were there challenges based on time of the year?
- Did you spend enough time with family, loved ones and friends?
- Did you make time for your own personal growth?
Hopefully these questions will guide your reflection on 2014. Based on your responses, this could guide your plan for 2015.
Self-reflection is a key tool that is can be overlooked by educators. Due to time constraints, we often move onto the next lesson, unit, or activity without taking the time to assess ourselves and our own practices. Keeping a journal is a great idea, or as I am finding out even blogging will help, the self-reflection process. By doing so, we challenge our perceived notions about our work and can take meaningful steps towards improvement. Teachers do not get daily feedback from administrations so it is imperative that we take the time to assess ourselves and doing so will create a better learning environment for our students. As the end of the school year approaches for many of us, teachers would be miss out on a simple self-questioning activity that could improve their next school year of teaching.
Thank you for the thoughtful comments. I agree that teachers do not get enough feedback and I have a lot of work to do to get better at that! Have a great summer and thanks again for reading!