Get feedback from students
Students have an opinion about every teacher, like it or not. Some students like us and some don't. So why should every teacher get their feedback?
They are the target of our attention. Everything we do, plan, assess, teach, has a single focus - engage students in learning. Students sit and listen and jump through the hoops we place in front of them. They know whether a teacher is legit or not; they know which teacher helps them learn and which ones don't.
I ask students frequently about my teaching and what I can improve. It's cool to hear the good stuff but I focus on what they perceive as needing change. If what I do isn't working for them, then I have shift my practice to meet their needs.
Use the feedback of the greatest stakeholder to improve your practice.
Co-plan and collaborate
Silos are lonely and ugly places to be. What's the silo? The classroom or the idea that only I, or you, can do it the best. Remaining isolated in physical and virtual spaces doesn't make sense. There is so much to learn from each other.
Co-planning and collaborating are two key components to improving your practice. Sharing ideas helps collaborators create richer and deeper learning experiences for students because the conversation riffs lead to creative ideas. This kind of conversation also helps to clarify what to teach and how to teach it.
This means you have to go outside of your comfort zone and invite someone into your world. At first it is going to be uncomfortable. Will the other person accept your ideas? Will they treat you with respect? There are many other questions but you won't know until you try.
Co-planning and collaborating will improve your practice because sharing makes us all better.
Question assessment practices
How you are assessing learning? Do you consider the student who needs more help to be less able than the student who needs less? Assessment should determine the extent to which students understand content after a reasonable amount of work. This may take longer for some and shorter for others. We are all this way.
What purpose does MC test have? What about extended response? What can you make into an authentic assessment? Testing to test or because a test grade is needed is counterintuitive to learning. The love of learning isn't tested but inspired . However, every educator knows students need to demonstrate what they have learned but this doesn't have to be done through a test. An email can be a test. Authentic artifacts can be an assessment. Drawings, models, and diagrams can be assessments. A portfolio can be an assessment. In other words, assessments
Why are you assessing the way you are?
Find a coach
I'm a tech and education coach, not sure that means much to anyone but me. I've learned a lot about what teachers need vs. trying to fly solo. It doesn't have to be someone with an official title.; it has to be someone you trust to tell the good and the bad.
Whoever you choose, titled or not, should provide you with objective feedback about how you are teaching and why you should change.
One of the best things I ever did was blog. It takes time and it takes away from other things but it helps to CLARIFY thinking. I don't many comments on my blog and I'm not worried about that. I use it as a way to reflect professionally about what I do and what I'm thinking.
Blogging forces you to reflect on your practice and improve.