2022-2023 Reflections

Welcome educators! Before we get started I want to share with you an amazing free tool I have available to you.  It is “The Ultimate Guide to a Successful School Year”. In this guide, I walk you through how you can take those nervous jitters to have undeniable confidence throughout the school year. All because you started with these basic steps in the guide. To download the guide go to myadventuresinesl.com/ultimateguide.

We are going to start off today’s episode with your reflection question. 

• How was your school year? What are some areas you excelled in? What are some areas of growth?

Take a moment to reflect on this question. Think about this question and answer yourself honestly about where you stand.

I will be answering these same questions this episode.  

It is the end of the year and most of us are excited just to be done. We pack up all our items and shove them in the closet for the next school. One thing that I notice that a lot of us do not do is being intentional about how we reflect on the school year. This can be a missed opportunity for us and is a fantastic opportunity for growth as an educator. 

I can relate this to because I did the exact same thing last year. The school year had been difficult with me changing school mid year, and I was just ready to be done with everything. So at the end of the year, I threw all my items in a box and left. 

I want to take a moment and be clear that I am not advocating you work over summer, but I am saying that reflecting would have been a good closure for the school year. I usually have that as part of my end of the year closeout, but I skipped doing it last year. I can tell you without a doubt that I felt the effects of not intentionally reflecting on the previous year. 

When I returned for the year, I felt scattered and confused about what direction to take for the school year. I promised myself that I would not make that same mistake again this upcoming school year. That is why I am publicly sharing my detailed process with clear action steps. 

Reflection #1: I deeply struggled with fulfilling my duty posts this year. At my previous school I did not have a duty post (that I am aware of) and transitioning to having a duty post was a struggle. I was not prepared for the responsibility of having a morning and afternoon duty post. One of the biggest reasons why I struggled was a few combined reasons. I was having family struggles, I was transitioning into getting myself ready and helping a toddler getting ready, and letting go of my old lifestyle. All of this combined didn’t have a positive impact on my duty posts. My action items to address this for the upcoming school year is about 3 weeks before school starts. I plan on getting up and getting ready like I am going to work. Just to get myself in the habit of getting up in the morning. My next action item is to make a personal pledge to reach out when I need help. I could have avoided a lot of this if I would have just reached out for help. My last action step is to set a goal for myself each month. This will help me stay consistent throughout the school year. 

Reflection #2: I did not enjoy the treasure box in my classroom, and I am putting it out of sight. Just to give you all some background, the previous teacher had a rewards system in place where basically when the students come to class they get a punch card. At the end of the week, they can use their punches to cash in to go to the treasure box. Since it was my first full year teaching, I did not want to implement too many drastic changes since they loved that system. But next school year it is getting a major overhaul. I did not like how the reward system was not attached to any meaningful goals. The students felt like just because they came in class and breathed they could get a punch which got under my skin. My action item for next school year is to attach the reward system to SMART Goals each week. Every Monday the students will write out their goals. I will do a 1 minute check-in with them throughout the week to make sure they are on track for their weekly goal. On Friday if they have reached their goal they will get punches to use in the treasure box. 

Reflection #3: I realized mid-year that I need to pursue continuing education in the science of reading and add an endorsement to my license. I was so tired of going to school. I promised myself that I would never return, but I realized that it was unrealistic. This year while teaching my younger students, I knew that I needed explicit instruction in how to teach reading. I have already taken one step in attending a week-long training in how to teach phonics. This school year I will be attending continuing education throughout the school year. Over the summer I will be planning my lessons based around what I learned in those sessions. I will also be attending school this year to get an endorsement in elementary education. 

As you can see, what I did was really simple. I thought about some areas of growth and came up with some clear action steps. 

Think about the school year or even your last year in college if you are a new teacher. Determine some areas of growth and then decide on 2-3 three action steps. 

Also, download the “The Ultimate Guide to a Successful School Year”.

My question to you is when do you plan on doing your reflection? Do you think it will be beneficial?

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You can download the transcript here.