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End of Year Reflection

Last updated almost 5 years ago

9 questions

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Question 1

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1. What went well that you plan to continue?
Start with the positives and think about what went well during the school year. It can be what went well overall, but then try to be really specific with what aspect of that area went well. Here are some examples of areas to reflect on when thinking about the positives:

Classroom Management
Any Subject Areas I Taught
Meeting the Needs of Each Specific Subset of Students
Parent Communication
Relationship Building with Students
Using Assessments to Guide Instruction
Any other specific areas that were a school or personal focus

By reflecting on the positives first, it frames us to be in the right mindset to then start thinking about the areas I want to change or modify.

Question 2

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2. What did not go so well and will be your focus area for the following year?
Start thinking about what did not go so well in each area. From that reflection, choose 2-3 areas to focus on the next school year. Choose a couple of focus areas because that laser focus will allow for growth in those areas.

Once you choose your focus area, here are some ideas to make some positive changes for the next school year:
Start a Pinterest board specific to that focus area.
Start curating and compiling blog post ideas, free resources, and even paid resources that will help you.
All summer long, add to your Pinterest board as you find things that you want to try.
Ask for help. Reach out to your colleagues or teachers in collaborative Facebook teaching groups and ask them for suggestions on how to improve specific areas.
Seek out a professional development book/webinar/professional development

Now that you have examined the obvious areas that went well and did not go well, let’s look specifically at the following areas.

Question 3

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3. Reflect on your classroom routines and procedures.
Ask yourself: Which procedures will I keep? Which will I change? What new ones do I need?
Also, think about which times of the day or transitions were the most frustrating and challenging. Think about a way to create a procedure to avoid problems or minimize the problems.

Once you have reflected, make a list of procedures you want to make sure you implement the following year. Save the list so you can refer to it at the beginning of the year.

Question 4

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4. Reflect on your classroom management.
Break this reflection into two areas: Expectations and Consequences

In regards to expectations, ask yourself:
Did I introduce my expectations effectively?
Was I consistent with ensuring my expectations were being followed?
What expectations do I need to change/add/or remove?
Did I effectively revisit my expectation as needed throughout the year?
For consequences, ask yourself:
Was I consistent at issuing consequences for expectations not being followed? If not, what can I change to be more consistent?
Were the consequences effective? In other words, did they work? Did the students care enough about the consequence to follow the expectations?
What new (and logical) consequences do I need to implement next year to ensure my students are following the expectations?
What positive reinforcements worked well? What did my students respond to the most that I can continue?

Question 5

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5. Reflect on your organization. Make some new plans for the next year.
Here are some questions to guide organization your reflection:
What areas or parts of the classroom were the most organized?
What areas or parts do I need to improve?
What part of my classroom did I feel was the most unorganized? How can I fix it to make it more organized?
Did I do a good enough job involving the students in keeping the room organized? How can I better involve them?
What, if any, new organizational supplies do I need to purchase to help me stay organized?

Question 6

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6. Reflect on your classroom setup, yes even virtually.
Here are some questions that guide your classroom setup end of year reflection:
Is your It's Learning Page highly developed and student-friendly?
When students are entering your class virtually, in what ways do you have a classroom set up for students to receive information and start class?
What would you adjust in these two areas for next year?

Question 7

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7. Reflect on your curriculum and instruction.
Here are some questions that guide curriculum and instruction end of year reflection:
Which area of my instruction was the weakest?
Did I provide enough student choice in my instruction?
Which areas of instruction and curriculum were not engaging for me and which were not engaging for my students?
Did I get all of my curriculum taught? If not, what can I combine, cut out, or speed up to get through it the next year?
In which areas of my curriculum was I lacking in engaging and meaningful resources?
What areas of my instruction needed to be more rigorous?
What type of instruction (the whole group read aloud, experiments, centers, small group teaching, etc.) went really well this year? Why did it go so well?
What type of instruction do I want to try out next year?

Question 8

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8. Reflect on your relationship with students, parents, and colleagues.
One of the most important parts of teaching are the relationships we build each year.
I like to spend some time reflecting by asking these questions:
What did I do that helped build relationships with my students? What else could I do?
What did I do that helped build community among my students? What else could I do?
Was I effective at communicating positives and concerns regularly with my parents? If not, how can I improve on this?
Which colleagues did I interact with the most? Which colleagues do I want to interact with more next year? Your colleagues can definitely be your best asset when teaching, so choose the ones you want to interact with carefully. Choose colleagues whose philosophy and attitude toward teaching aligns closely to yours. Also, choose colleagues who will push your learning and growth as a teacher.

Question 9

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9. Reflect on student engagement and data collection
SCELA’s 2020-2021 school year goals were around student engagement and data collection.
Think about these questions and reflect on the impact you believe you had with these goals:
How well do you feel you incorporated these two goals into your daily practices?
What would you do differently in the future to build stronger student engagement?
How do you see data collection and discussions being more effective in the future?
How successful were you at engaging your students?
In what ways did you engage your students?
How successful were you at reviewing your data and allowing it to guide your instruction?