As a teacher, you often think about how to challenge your students. But, have you ever thought about how to challenge yourself as a teacher. You might feel that sometimes you run out of options to improve your teaching and you are searching for new ways to innovate, challenge yourself, and enhance your teaching skills. Here are 8 ways to improve yourself as a teacher:

Get your teaching evaluated

You can give out anonymous feedback surveys to your students to understand your positive teaching aspects as well as aspects of your teaching that your students aren’t very fond of, from your students’ point of view. This should give you an idea of what areas you should improve yourself or how you can change your teaching ways.

Try your hand at Podcasting

You can try podcasting with a colleague or by yourself on a topic that isn’t related to your class and is just a general topic in current affairs, this should keep your students interested and engage more rather than getting bored.

Learn a skill that isn’t related to teaching

Learning a new skill other than your line of work will help you increase your adaptability, likeability, keep you relevant, help you make connections between skill areas, keep your mind and body active and more. You can learn dance, painting, cooking, or any other skill that you are passionate about so that you understand, from a students’ perspective of being a learner.

Join Cross-functional groups

Cultivate the habit of joining cross-functional groups and interacting and having engaging conversations with people from both inside your professional circle as well as outside, which will be immensely helpful in both your emotional and professional development.

Keep your mind Open

Always have the habit of reading books, listening to podcasts, TED talks, talking to a wide variety of people from different backgrounds and more. In short, there are a lot more opportunities and avenues that will open for you if you keep your eyes, ears and mind open.

Updating your Skillset

You can attend an Online Webinar, do online/offline certification courses on skill-based teaching or pedagogical teaching, or you can diversify your teaching in another field by learning a new subject. Well, in short, don’t get complacent and get stagnant with your current skill set and update yourself according to the NEP(National Educational Policy) guidelines.

Keep away from Negative conversations

Make sure to keep away from negative conversations at your workplace, be it a school/college/university, and engage in conversations that can be productive for your teaching or it can just be a general positive conversation.

Present/Publish your work

You can present a paper at a conference with regards to the new teaching technique that you have implemented in your class or a new teaching approach that will help others in your field. Getting your paper reviewed or getting your paper published in a journal or getting recognized for your work through social media and other relevant networking platforms will make you more confident and excel more in your teaching.

Be Competitive

Even if you feel like you have done everything in your career and feel like that you have attained the pinnacle of your career, there is always scope for improvement to improve your teaching. Always compete with yourself and always strive to be better than your past self. Make a teaching resolution on how you can better yourself at a particular aspect and commit to it with a specified timeline( quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly).

Learn to be better at Blended Learning

Recently proposed New Education Policy by the Government has great emphasis on Blended learning, where Online/virtual learning should be incorporated to students along with on campus classes. This necessity, along with the growing popularity of online education models makes it a must for every teacher to be sufficiently skilled at online technology, gadgets, conducting webinars,etc.

Take periodical breaks from work

If you are a senior teacher, there is a high chance you always have more work to do. But, this might lead to stress and you running out of new ideas. It’s always a good practice to take periodical breaks between your work and engage in recreational activities such as taking a vacation or catching a movie or catching up with your close friends. This will refresh your mind and will help you in being innovative and creative with your students in the class.

We hope that these tips are helpful to improve/upskill yourself as a teacher. In case you would like to know more, Rareminds has a dedicated Teacher Development program where we take utmost effort and care to develop your skills further as a teacher.