15May
Setting Smart Goals for the New Academic Session – Teachers
- admin.schoolshell
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Smart goals are designed to help anyone achieve more in a timely and efficient manner, and teachers are not an exception. Every new academic year comes along with various opportunities for teachers to improve on themselves; professionally and ignite the passion for learning in students, thereby improving their academic performance.
You have to set smart goals at the beginning of an academic year to increase your chances of achieving them. This is because, at the beginning of the academic year, you’re filled with renewed energy and whatever you do at the beginning sets the tone for the rest of the year. Smart goals should be specific and differentiated based on an individual teacher’s needs. These goals should be aimed at improving the academic performance of students.
A Smart Goal is:
- Specific- Clarify the who, what, when, and where of your goal.
- Measurable- Have a quantitative & qualitative measurement of your goal towards progress.
- Attainable- Set a realistic goal and take action.
- Relevant- Setting goals that are of benefit to you and are worthwhile.
- Timely- A targeted date to end goals
It is time to set Smart Goals!
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- Be a Better Teacher: You have to do this yourself, only you can improve you. You should improve the delivery of the content of every lesson by simplifying it and gauge your students’ understanding of it after the lesson, do not forget to keep it fun and exciting. You should work on your time management to ensure that you are in class on time and stick to the allocated time for the lesson; this will help instill special regard for timeliness in your students. You should also provide more instructional materials for your students, students attention is piqued when they see objects, images or pictorial charts relating to a lesson. This will improve their ability to recall the lesson.
The performance of the students when answering questions during the lesson as well as their general participation in class should be a guide to measure how relevant the lesson was. Strive for above average performance from 70% of the students, anything less indicates you should revise the lesson to present it in a more understandable manner.If you apply the strategies above, your students will most likely excel in their academics. Think of the benefits you stand to gain when the school management as well as parents notice the improved performance of your students – you’ll most likely bag a promotion!Moreover, the work you put into your students would live with them forever and that would be your legacy.
- Be a Better Teacher: You have to do this yourself, only you can improve you. You should improve the delivery of the content of every lesson by simplifying it and gauge your students’ understanding of it after the lesson, do not forget to keep it fun and exciting. You should work on your time management to ensure that you are in class on time and stick to the allocated time for the lesson; this will help instill special regard for timeliness in your students. You should also provide more instructional materials for your students, students attention is piqued when they see objects, images or pictorial charts relating to a lesson. This will improve their ability to recall the lesson.
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- Live Life: Your life should not always revolve around the four walls of a school. Live life and always find time to rest. In as much as you should put in deliver your very best, you should strive to avoid burn out. Have a life of your own – get a hobby outside of the work you do; like gardening or playing tennis, anything to get your mind off work.Coming to school, every day worn out indicates that you have not been creating enough time for rest. Do the things you love. Spend time with you family and love ones. Rest and leisurely activities has a way of replenishing your energy levels. So when you are back to the classroom, you have the energy to exert. The idea is creating a balance between work and life.
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- Give Your Students Room to Soar: As a teacher, you are more of guide than anything else, remember this the next time you feel the urge to “help your students out”. Allow your students to take more responsibilities. Let them make mistakes; do not punish them for it – that is how children learn. Work out ways to give your students some reign. Giving your students some control on how they will learn can be very beneficial for them. It makes them more invested in the learning process, while simultaneously taking away the pressure associated with it. They are more confident in themselves because you believe in them and have pride in their work (no matter how bad it looks). Give them group projects relating to the lesson and make sure you supervise them properly – reward those that participated actively and encourage those that did not. You should also give them lesson topics beforehand to research.When you engage your students like this, you encounter less resistance and can impart them even more. Your classroom can almost run itself with everything in order when you give students responsibilities in the classroom. Students would become more motivated to listen to what you say because you have taken time to listen to their verbal and non-verbal cues. I suggest you watch the movie “Like Stars on Earth” for more insight.
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- Get More Teaching Tools: There is a saying that goes; “A workman is only as good as his tools”. Getting the right tools and using them effectively can make you the best in your profession. As a teacher you’d normally carry certain tasks repetitively in a term – such as; grading, taking attendance, constructing lesson notes, developing lesson plans, etc. You can easily reduce the stress associated with these tasks by adopting a school management system. You should take advantage of online learning platforms such as Quora or StackOverflow. You should also learn some neat tricks to use while searching for content on Google:
- Append the word “meaning” to a word to search for the definition of the word. e.g. Appreciate Meaning
- Wrap a phrase with double quotes (“) to search for the exact phrase. e.g. “Disadvantages of mono-cropping”
- Etcetera…
By taking advantage of these tools, you will be able to do more in a fraction of the time you used to in the past.
- Get More Teaching Tools: There is a saying that goes; “A workman is only as good as his tools”. Getting the right tools and using them effectively can make you the best in your profession. As a teacher you’d normally carry certain tasks repetitively in a term – such as; grading, taking attendance, constructing lesson notes, developing lesson plans, etc. You can easily reduce the stress associated with these tasks by adopting a school management system. You should take advantage of online learning platforms such as Quora or StackOverflow. You should also learn some neat tricks to use while searching for content on Google:
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- Get Parents Involved: Parents have great amount of influence over their children, especially in their formative years. A great way to increase your impart as a teacher is to encourage their parents’ to actively partake in educating their wards. Little things like correct their grammar, spelling, and compelling the students to read their books at home can go a long way. You can also invite parents give a talk to students about their occupation/vocation; this will encourage those that are yet to decide on their future ambitions to make up their minds, it will also give them a broader scope of what career options are available to them. Ask parents to always check their wards’ books for complete notes and asking them questions. They should also assist them with their assignments and projects. There are many ways to involve parents; you just have to make it a priority. Set up a platform for communication with the parents.This will help you in building a cordial relation with parents. You would also notice that your students would begin to take their education more seriously because of their parent’s involvement.
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- Be a Team Player: “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself”. Be a team player. Plan and prepare for the academic year with your colleagues. If you work for a school, it more than likely that you have colleagues with similar knowledge base as yourself. You should plan the academic year with such knowledgeable colleagues – prepare lesson plans, lesson notes, instructional materials together, everyone should contribute to developing solid learning materials for the academic year.This will bring ideas that are more creative to the fore; everyone involved would gain from the exercise since most of the content that you would come up with would be relevant for each teacher in the classroom. You would build camaraderie; everyone would develop profound trust and respect for each other – that is how you grow as a team. Moreover, teachers would now be able to stand in for each other as they all have a unified understanding of the lesson scheme for the year. Your students would benefit greatly for the extra pair of eyes that help developed your lesson plans making them less error-prone and more thorough.If you are more precise about your goals, then you are more likely to accomplish them. Remember you need to be able to quantify your goals. I suggest you deploy these tools to help you plan towards your goals, measure your progress and give your more focus:
- Goal-Buddy
- GoalsonTrack
- Goalscape and these to-do planners to help you to be consistent towards achieving your goal
- Milestone Planner
- Any.do
- Be a Team Player: “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself”. Be a team player. Plan and prepare for the academic year with your colleagues. If you work for a school, it more than likely that you have colleagues with similar knowledge base as yourself. You should plan the academic year with such knowledgeable colleagues – prepare lesson plans, lesson notes, instructional materials together, everyone should contribute to developing solid learning materials for the academic year.This will bring ideas that are more creative to the fore; everyone involved would gain from the exercise since most of the content that you would come up with would be relevant for each teacher in the classroom. You would build camaraderie; everyone would develop profound trust and respect for each other – that is how you grow as a team. Moreover, teachers would now be able to stand in for each other as they all have a unified understanding of the lesson scheme for the year. Your students would benefit greatly for the extra pair of eyes that help developed your lesson plans making them less error-prone and more thorough.If you are more precise about your goals, then you are more likely to accomplish them. Remember you need to be able to quantify your goals. I suggest you deploy these tools to help you plan towards your goals, measure your progress and give your more focus:
Be realistic, that is the only way you can be specific in determining your smart goals. Your smart goals need to align with why you are in this chosen profession- teaching, and finally, set a deadline for your smart goals. By setting it, you can stay on track with your smart goals.
