The Teacher Burnout Podcast

#50 TBP
[00:00:00] In today's episode, I'm going to share strategies for building your self efficacy. That's all coming up next, right here on the teacher burnout podcast. So stay tuned.
Welcome to the Teacher Burnout Podcast, where we explore the challenges of burnout for teachers and share practical strategies to support teacher well being. I'm your host, Barb Flowers. If you're a teacher looking for ways to prevent burnout or an educational leader searching for strategies to support your team, this podcast is for you.
Let's dive in.
Welcome back to the podcast today. I want to talk about self-efficacy and importance of having self-efficacy in teaching.
We hear a lot in education with John Hattie about collective teacher efficacy. So I just want to touch on that and what that means. Collective teacher efficacy is the collective belief of teachers in their ability to positively affect students. Collective teacher [00:01:00] efficacy has an effect size of 1.57, which is the number one influence on student achievement because they have found that it statistically so high. Today I want to talk about self-efficacy and so self-efficacy is people's own beliefs in themselves to achieve a goal. So it has a lot to do with confidence.
It's not exactly like confidence, but it's a very similar. Because it's , how a person sees themselves in their ability to be successful in a certain situation. And you can have high self-efficacy in certain areas, but not others. So for example, you might have high self-efficacy in. A sport that you do, maybe you're a runner and you have high self-efficacy in that area.
You know, if you say you're going to go out for a five mile run, you're going to do that. You're going to put in your best work. You have no doubts in yourself about that, but maybe you struggle with. Eating healthy. Maybe your self-efficacy [00:02:00] with eating healthy is not there. And you have the beliefs that no matter what plan you try, it's not going to work because it's never worked before.
So that's an example, or maybe you have high self-efficacy. In teaching math, because you feel really confident , in that area, you have strong content knowledge in that area. And you just feel good about it, but you don't have high self-efficacy in teaching reading. And you're an elementary teacher who teaches both.
So that's an example that it doesn't have to be all or nothing just because you have low self-efficacy it doesn't mean you haven't in all areas of your life. You could, but you can't have high self-efficacy in some areas and low self-efficacy. In other areas, So John Hattie shows that having self-efficacy has an effect size of 0.63.
So that means that it has a positive impact or a positive effect size. On student achievement because when we have self-efficacy it makes a difference in our ability to teach.
And when students have [00:03:00] self-efficacy, it makes a difference in their ability to learn. So having that is really important for achievement. So when somebody doesn't have, self-efficacy some things that they think are what they do, doesn't matter. They aren't good at something. It's having a negative mindset or that fixed belief.
When we think about a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, it really is that fixed mindset in whatever. Area you have low self-efficacy. You doubt your abilities when teachers don't have self-efficacy and teaching, it means they feel like no matter what they do, they're not going to make a difference in their students' learning in that area or even in their lives.
They think that. It won't matter, no matter how hard you teach, they're not going to learn to read or no matter what you do, they're not going to retain the information. So it's having this negative view about your teaching and then even students' interaction with it. Things that may cause low self-efficacy.
So if you're having trouble with classroom management, that can [00:04:00] really cause low self-efficacy, classroom management can be such a struggle. And when you're struggling with that, it makes teaching really hard. And so if you are struggling with classroom management, it can make you feel like a bad teacher overall.
And like, Nothing you do will make a difference because you can't get the kids to listen or you can't get the kids to attend or be engaged in what you're doing. So classroom management is huge when it comes to self-efficacy. Also just student engagement in general. So if students aren't engaged, it can bring down your self efficacy. And so you have to think about what you're doing that could maybe be causing a lack of student engagement, but it's really hard when you have low self-efficacy to build that up and think about what to do different. Also, maybe you don't have support from your colleagues or administration and this causes low self-efficacy.
If you don't have that support system and you're a new teacher or. Maybe you're teaching a new area that you're not as familiar with.
It [00:05:00] really can lower your self efficacy because you don't have other people to collaborate with and talk with and you don't feel supported. So that can be really difficult. Also professional development opportunities and the resources you have can cause low self-efficacy. So for me, I loved reading professional development books as a teacher.
And I loved implementing new things, but really what all that was doing was causing me low self-efficacy. And I didn't even realize it because. I didn't just focus on. Student data and how students were progressing. I focused on, am I doing it right when I read this book, am I doing that? Am I doing everything right?
Like, I should be. And so I never felt like I was doing a good enough job as a teacher. And so I would change things all the time. I think, especially back to my first year, Where I just did this so much because, you know, I didn't know I was a new teacher. I had low self efficacy. I didn't have belief in my abilities.
And so I just changed things on my students all the time when they were progressing [00:06:00] with the first thing that I was doing. So I was so focused on doing things right. Instead of just doing things that are best for my kids. Also. Not having professional development opportunities can cause low self-efficacy.
If you're asked to implement something and you haven't had the proper PD, it's going to bring down your self efficacy in your ability to. Use that curriculum and to produce results with your students. And so being mindful of that, it takes about 50 hours of PD. To get really good at something. So knowing that, you might not have the PD that you need to get good at something that can cause self efficacy low.
Self-efficacy also not having the resources you need as a teacher. So teachers who don't have. , the materials they need to teach. And so you're scrambling and, you know, you might need to do something different, but you don't have those materials to teach with that can cause low [00:07:00] self-efficacy as well. I want to give two examples of teachers with low self-efficacy.
So you can see what I mean by this and see if you can relate to this. So I'm going to give you an example of a new middle school teacher, fresh out of college. And despite all of her qualifications and excitement for teaching, she finds herself, doubting her abilities due to inexperience. She struggles with classroom management, which further diminishes her confidence because we know, like I said earlier, when you're not managing the class, it makes everything harder and it can be very discouraging. Each time a lesson doesn't go as planned or when a student's disengaged, she feels it reflects poorly on her skills as a teacher. And she doesn't just see it as a normal part of learning for students.
And just what happens in classrooms. And this lack of confidence, it just makes her hesitant to implement new teaching strategies and engage with our students. Because she's afraid of failing or being criticized. And her self doubt leads her to do [00:08:00] things that make her feel safe. It leads her to do traditional teaching methods that don't engage her students and maybe even do teaching methods that some of the older teachers next to her are doing. That aren't as engaging, but she's playing it safe because she's not trusting in her teaching abilities.
Another example is a veteran teacher who teaches science.
So this teacher has been teaching high school science for over 20 years. The district adopts a new science curriculum that integrates more technology and student centered learning strategies. And the teacher feels overwhelmed by these changes. He's not used to using all the technology.
He's not used to these student centered strategies. He starts to doubt his ability to adapt to these strategies. And really use the new technology effectively. So the discomfort he has with the new teaching methods, it causes them to worry that he's not teaching as effectively as he used to, which impacts his interaction with students. It impacts his willingness to embrace these new teaching strategies.
And he reminisces [00:09:00] about his earlier years in teaching when he felt more competent and more confident in his teaching methods.
Viewing the new demands as a challenge to his professional identity in what he already knows about teaching and himself as a teacher, rather than an opportunity for growth.
So those are two examples, both new teachers, both veteran teachers, they can experience this where they have doubt in their ability because of new teaching methods or whatever it is. When I think about this, I think about what our teachers just went through, learning the science of reading. For years, we were taught to teach kids, to read using a balanced literacy structure. And then now we're taught to use the science of reading, which is not a bad thing at all, basically we're going through the training saying no, what you were doing is bad.
Having students learn to skip words and go back as bad. Those are strategies you shouldn't teach kids. And that makes you start to doubt your abilities. That's really hard to hear. And so it's important that we just have the self-efficacy and the confidence in ourselves and our [00:10:00] teaching. Two. Keep improving and keep growing and not beat ourselves up about these situations and when we are learning new things.
So today I just want to give you some strategies for building up your own self-efficacy. If these are scenarios that you struggle with. The first strategy I have is you have to be aware that you may have low self-efficacy. You have to be aware that you're struggling with something or. A lot of times with the second example I gave of the veteran teacher. The teachers who may struggle with the new teaching strategies, what's they come off as angry and upset.
I can cause some animosity in the culture because people are upset about the changes and people are uncomfortable and they're doubting their abilities because they've taught so long a certain way, and they felt comfortable with that.
But what you have to be aware of is that maybe that's what's causing you so much. Anger and being upset. Is there some doubt in the learning? Right? Because it's really hard to learn something [00:11:00] new when you've taught something a certain way for a long period of time. And I also get, everybody says the pendulum and education at swinging.
And so there's that frustration as well. Sometimes we're asked to implement things that maybe a veteran teacher had done 20 years ago. And so they're like, I've already done this. It's not that it was bad, but then we had to move to something else. So there's frustration with that. And I get that, but you have to be aware when, what is causing you to not grow and continue moving on is that you are struggling with your confidence and you do have low self-efficacy. Cassie.
Because if you don't even realize that's a problem for you, you can't fix it.
And so you have to know that you're struggling with your self efficacy. You have to know that you have doubt in your abilities. So that you're able to grow in that.
My second strategy is to set a micro goal and do what you need to do to meet that goal. So I say a micro goal, I'm just talking a mini goal, something really small that you think you can meet. So when we struggle to meet goals, we set it's because we have a [00:12:00] lack of trust in ourselves.
It's because in the past we have not kept promises to ourselves. We've set resolutions, we've set goals and we didn't achieve them. And that's really common with low self-efficacy or low confidence to not keep promises to ourselves because we set a goal and we think. Okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to lose 10 pounds and then a couple of weeks into the goal or when it starts to get hard, we think. I don't want to do this and we just stop. And we give up.
And so we become a person who believes that we're a person who gives up on our goals. And we lose that trust in ourself. And so when you're trying to build that up again and learn to keep promises to yourself, to set goals and keep those goals. You need to start with micro goals. Because sometimes what we do and the problem is we set these huge goals that there's no way you can achieve that. Like for talking weight loss.
Sometimes we try these programs that are so restrictive that it's like, you'll never be able to achieve that, especially if you were eating [00:13:00] junk before. You know, so you have to just create these small micro goals. If you're wanting to change something in your classroom. You need to create a micro goal.
And I was so guilty of this. I would try to change everything at once.
Let's say you're the science teacher who needs to start doing more student directed learning. And you weren't doing that before. Instead of making everything student directed, just set micro goals. Maybe you make one area student directed of the lesson. And then maybe you add more as time goes on, but start really small because you can't do it all at once.
You've never done student directed learning before. So if you start making every class student directed learning. That's going to be really hard and you probably are going to give up because it's too big of a goal. So set micro goals that, you know, you can achieve. I look at it, like writing a list that, you know, you can cross the things off on the list because it makes you feel good and it makes you feel accomplished. That's the same with micro goals.
You want to create things that, you know, you can meet. So [00:14:00] that you feel good about yourself and it builds up your self efficacy in that area. So learn to trust yourself by setting those micro goals and meeting them. And just keep doing that and keep making the goals a little bit bigger each time. And my third strategy is to engage in PD to get better in an area.
So studies show that teachers need 50 hours in an area to really improve. And we don't have time in school to do 50 hours on a topic. We do a PD topic on one day or in one hour, and then we move on and sometimes we never talk about it again. We know there are so many different things in education that we have to talk about.
So it's hard to have that time. And it's so easy to just get a little bit of PD here and there as teachers.
I understand you don't have control of that for the district. And so if your district is doing a lot of different topics, What I recommend for you is to pick an area that you need to get better at, and you give yourself 50 hours of improvement in that area. So pick a topic, [00:15:00] read studies on that topic.
Read books, find as much information as you can. Maybe you can find courses or webinars. Then attend PD, if you can find it on that topic and create a plan for implementing that. So with us, we've been doing the science of reading at my school and we have done. Lots of hours on the science of reading.
And I have seen that because we have spent so many hours on it. Teachers are actually implementing what we've been doing because we've spent the time on it. So if you have a certain area that you want to improve, what I recommend is that you decide to put the time in and just focus on one area at a time. And this can be really hard for elementary teachers, because if you teach reading math, science, social studies, you cannot improve every area at all times.
So you need to pick one area to improve on. Focus on that area and work on it throughout the year.
Because the more you engage in PD and get better, the higher self-efficacy you'll have in that area.
You will continue to get better in an area and you'll feel more [00:16:00] confident.
Give yourself that feeling of self-efficacy that you can really make a difference for your students. By engaging in PD to get better.
So just to recap, our three strategies for building your self efficacy strategy, one, be aware that you may have low self-efficacy. Strategy to set micro goals and do what you need to do to meet those goals and strategy three, engage in PD to get better in an area. There's so many other ways you can continue to build yourself efficacy that I work on with my clients and coaching. So these are just a couple of strategies that I like to give to my coaching clients.
Love coaching teachers and one-on-one and group coaching settings. And if you're interested, I can help you become more aware of where you're struggling with confidence and self-efficacy. And hold you accountable for growing in those areas, because it is hard to make these changes on your own.
It's hard to see your blind spots. So if you'd like to work with me, reach out to me on Instagram at Barb flowers, coaching or at Barb at Barb flowers, coaching.com. So thank you so much for joining me [00:17:00] today. I hope you found this helpful.
I hope you try to implement these strategies.
If you liked the show, share this episode with a friend, maybe they're struggling with self-efficacy and they could find this episode really helpful. Keep in mind, you have the power to shape your life. According to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you back here next time.