Six Ways to Improve Your Teaching

Every teacher strives to improve every day, and although you will never be perfect, there are many different ways you can work towards improving your teaching techniques. In this article we’ll discuss six ways you can do just that.

Get Feedback from Your Students

The best place to start when looking to improve your teaching is the students who are on the receiving end. Chatting to them about what they need and what they like, and dislike, can give you an excellent insight into how you can best approach teaching them. With older students, you could hand out feedback sheets for them to fill in anonymously.

Get Feedback from Your Colleagues

Your colleagues are an invaluable learning resource. They will have different levels of experience and different tips and tricks that they find works best. Talking to them and asking how you can improve can go a long way towards improving your teaching.

Create a Teaching Log

Monitoring and reviewing your own teaching to create a dialogue with yourself is an excellent way to stay consistently on-top of improving your teaching skills. Creating a professional diary, or teaching log, can help you to review your work and steadily improve. Don’t forget to keep track of what you can improve upon, but also what you have done well, and what seems to have worked for your students. What may work for one class may not work for another.

Give Responsibilities

Students love to be given responsibilities, and it can be incredibly beneficial to their learning. Giving students responsibilities can help to promote independence, problem-solving, self-confidence, and the motivation to take responsibility over their own learning. Learning to take on responsibility early on can help students when they take exams or in the world of work, as well as fostering a more trusting teacher-student relationship.

Further Your Own Education

As an educator, you probably understand better than anyone the value of education, so why should you forget about yourself? You can further your credentials by taking teacher professional development credits, which have been shown to improve student outcomes and your own confidence within the classroom.

Talk to the Parents

Talking to parents is another excellent way to learn more about your students and develop your teaching skills accordingly. Parents are the people who know your students best, and therefore they are invaluable resource. Although some parents can be difficult to talk to, asking them how best you can help their child or how they think you can improve can be a great way to start a constructive dialogue. You may even be surprised by how much help they can be.

Of course, as with any job, you have to give to yourself before you can give to others. If you are finding yourself feeling burnt out or run down and this is affecting your ability to teach, it may be best to take some time to focus on yourself. There are many ways to improve your teaching, but hopefully these six have inspired you to try something new.

Thanks to Lauren