The Teacher Burnout Podcast

The Importance of Reflecting on the School Year and Creating an Action Plan
[00:00:00] In today's episode, I'm going to talk about how you can reflect on the school year to create an action plan moving forward.
That's all Podcast. 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 reflecting on the school year and creating an action plan to move forward. We all know as educators the importance of reflection. Reflection is something that has been ingrained in us as educators and as a school leader, I see that the best teachers are the ones are really reflective and they are able to [00:01:00] look at a lesson and reflect on what went well and what didn't.
And that's what reflection does. It helps you see what is going well and what isn't, and it helps you see what you need to change. When you reflect, it's an opportunity to reassess and decide what needs to be different and reflective. People are willing to grow and learn through their own experiences.
When we're not reflective, that usually means that there's a fixed mindset, and so it's harder for people who aren't reflective to grow and continue to get better. because having reflection is really deciding and discovering what that cause and effect relationship is for what's happening. So we see reflection in teaching when we give assessments, right?
If all of our students failed and we're reflecting on that, what we should see is that the cause was maybe that we didn't teach the lesson in a way that students understood what we were teaching. So the effect is. Our [00:02:00] students did poorly on the assessment, and it's important that we're able to see that and think about the things that we need to change as educators, because if we put blame on other people, and we don't reflect on what we need to change, then we're stuck in this fixed mindset.
and it's just going to leave us stuck where we're not growing. Nothing's going to change and we're going to be unhappy. So it's really important that you have that growth mindset. You see your impact in the situations that happen. There's always things we can control and not control in situations.
There's always things we have control over. And then there's things we don't have control over in situations. And so we really want to be reflective of what's going on. So we can decide if it's something that we do have control over and it's something that we can change, and reflection is so great too, because it helps us know ourselves better.
If you ever talk to somebody who's super reflective, they really know who they [00:03:00] are because they've reflected on so many experiences and how they've handled those experiences that they know who they are as an, as a person, as an educator. And so reflection is really important. Hall and Simmerall said, the more reflective you are, the more effective you are, which I love that quote, because I think that's so true.
If you're able to be reflective, then you can really be effective. Confucius says learning without reflection is a waste and reflection without learning is dangerous, which if you think about that, that is a scary thought. If we take the time to reflect, but we're not actually learning from it, that really goes back into having that fixed mindset.
We're not growing and we're not changing. And if you're learning without reflecting on the things that you're doing, then you're probably not learning the right things. Margaret J. Wheatley says, Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences and failing to [00:04:00] achieve anything useful.
And so again, having that reflection gives us intention on what we're working towards and how we're going to make things better. I just wanted to cover some things that you may need to reflect on this week. We know as teachers, there's so many aspects of teaching, but some things that you could reflect on are the instructional strategies you used.
I was an elementary teacher, so there were lots of instructional strategies because I taught all subject areas. But thinking about, you know, were you doing a lot of whole group teaching? Did you do centers? Were those centers effective? I know in my school right now, we're talking a lot about explicit instruction and strategies from Anita Archer because kids are really engaged when you have more Explicit instruction, which is different than I was taught.
So having those reflections on , were the instructional strategies that I was using effective? Were kids engaged the whole time? You know, what could I go back and do different? Also reflecting on how far you got in the curriculum. We are implementing new math curriculum this year.
And so many teachers [00:05:00] only got three fourths of the way in the curriculum, which is normal when you're implementing a new curriculum. But if you don't reflect on where you got and how that went. it's not going to be better for next year. So really reflecting and thinking about how far you got and what you need to tweak for next year so you can get further in the curriculum.
Also, just reflecting on those relationships that you had with students. Were there students that you struggled to build relationships with? Were there even families that you struggled to build relationships with and why? It could even be a colleague. Maybe you're on a team and you struggled with a certain colleague, you know, what was the cause of that?
hardship in that relationship. So really reflecting on that so it can be better for next year. Also, classroom management. It could be that it was a more difficult group of students, but also we know with classroom management, we see more and more that kids have less of an attention span. So I think with classroom management, really thinking about the instructional strategies you're using.
If you're reflecting on [00:06:00] that, how much were kids engaged? How often did you have to give out discipline and consequences, or did you have good classroom routines and expectations in place that things just ran smoothly?
How was your parent communication this year? Did you communicate too often? Did you communicate not frequently enough? What feedback did you get from parents? Did any parents give you any kind of feedback? If you do a survey for parents, that's a great way to see what their thoughts are on it, but really understanding, How you communicated with parents because I think this is such a big one in education and it goes with my next one about what boundaries do you need to?
Set and really reflecting on those boundaries and I think boundaries around parent communication Are so important with all the messaging apps that are out there If you're a teacher who's not good at shutting your phone off or turning the app off after school, maybe that's something you need to work on for next year.
Having those clear boundaries that you're putting out there ahead of [00:07:00] time that you're not going to be checking those messages. after four o'clock. Letting parents know that right up front and sticking to those boundaries so that they're not surprised when you don't respond to them, right? And then you sticking to that so that they don't keep messaging you or keep expecting you to message them back after school. So thinking about those boundaries, maybe it's boundaries around time. Maybe you stayed after school a lot, or maybe you were at a lot of committees and you just felt overwhelmed and really stressed. So reflecting on what those boundaries are, and what you need to do better next year, and where you need to set boundaries.
Also reflecting on any overwhelm or stress you felt. I think sometimes we get to the end of the year and it's easy to forget about a certain time when you were really stressed out. The end of the year is stressful, so don't get me wrong about that, but maybe in January you were really stressed because of something going on or how you set up your own boundaries.
Think about what that was and why and try to reflect on that so that you can fix it for next [00:08:00] year. And then maybe you need to reflect on your habits and routines that you had in both your personal life and at school. Did you take time for yourself? Did you work out every day? What habits and routines do you need to put in place to take care of yourself, to take care of your family, whatever you have going on in your life?
Make sure that you are doing those things. After we take time to reflect and we figure out what our strengths were, what our weaknesses are, then that's the time that we get to create an action plan. And this is the fun part because this is where you get to decide what action you want to change.
So first you're going to decide from reflecting, what are you going to change? What were your strengths? What were your weaknesses? What didn't go well that you want it to be different for next year? One thing I love about being in education is that we get to reset every year. But if you don't take intentional action, it's not going to be any different the next year.
So really think about what action you want to change, [00:09:00] what didn't go well, and how you're going to change it. Then the second thing you're going to think about is what's your goal? Is your goal to have better boundaries? You're going to leave school every day at four o'clock. Or you're going to have one day you stay late or one day you come in early, but other days you leave at four o'clock.
Are you going to find better instructional strategies to engage your students? Think about what you want to accomplish, create a goal that's actionable and that you can actually see if you're making progress towards that goal. And then my third step is you need to come up with the thoughts you need to change to reach that goal because you become who you see yourself as.
Your identity and how you see yourself drives your behaviors. For example, if you just say, I'm a stressed out person, I've always been stressed, I've always been anxious, that's never going to change. If those are your thoughts, then it's not going to change. But if you decide that you're going to be a person who has strict boundaries and you're going to be a teacher who, you know, [00:10:00] has a great work life balance, who's able to go to work, work hard, and then you shut your phone off in the evening, you get to decide that you get to decide what kind of teacher you want to be.
Because how you see yourself drives your behaviors. So really think about what that goal is and the person that you need to become to reach that goal. And my fourth step is create three actionable steps for how you're going to change moving forward. They need to be things that you can actually monitor and know that you're doing.
So, for example, if you are going to work on setting boundaries and your goal is to set boundaries so that you feel less stressed, your action steps could be that you are going to leave work at four o'clock, you are only going to be on one committee, , you are going to have an accountability partner who checks in with you on these boundaries.
Maybe it's a spouse, maybe it's a co worker who's checking in with you to make sure that you're holding yourself accountable to the boundaries that you set or holding yourself accountable to these [00:11:00] goals Because if you're taking the time to reflect and create an action plan You want to make sure that you're following through on the goals that you set So often I see with the professional growth plans that we set with teachers, they'll come to me and say, I forget what goals I set.
I put that away somewhere. And if we don't have our goals out where we can see them and we don't have people checking in with us, we're never going to accomplish those goals. So have accountability with your goals, have people checking in with you. If you want more accountability, join us in the Resilient Educator Academy. You get access to our private Facebook community and you could talk about what goals you're trying to achieve and in there have the accountability of people checking in with you to make sure that you achieve those goals.
I also have the course, The Summer Reset, and in this course you get five modules for how to do a summer reset because you cannot eliminate burnout by just taking a break. You have to take intentional action like I'm talking about today. [00:12:00] So you can buy that course separately or you can join the resilient educator academy and that course is included in the academy and then you get access to coaching calls and access to a private facebook group where you can actually be coached.
So if you know that you need more accountability, more support, I encourage you to join the resilient educator academy because that's really going to help you take intentional action and hold yourself accountable. , burnout does not go away on its own. I think so often we think I'm going to take a break, I'm going to disconnect from everything, and I'm not going to keep learning.
And if you don't take time for that reflection and learning, nothing will get better. Nothing will change. You'll pick up right where you left off. So you have to have that time that you take for yourself. It's got to be a balance between disconnecting and continuing to grow and learn. . Thanks so much for joining us today for another episode of the teacher burnout podcast.
Make sure to follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Barbed Flowers [00:13:00] Coaching. Also, if you like this show, please share this episode with a friend.
But 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.
Yeah. Yeah. .