Re-vamp your professional learning: 8 ideas

8 ideas to re-vamp your professional learning

It's easy to stick with our tried and tested routines because we know they work. However, after a while they can become boring and leave us feeling unenthusiastic or stuck in a rut. Then what?

We often learn the most from making mistakes or failing, so don't be afraid to give these ideas a try and make this year’s New Year’s resolution about improving your teaching.

1. Join Twitter – There are thousands of experts and educators from all over the world on social media willing to offer their advice, ideas and support. Make the most of it and join them.

2. Start Blog – Writing a blog is a great way to reflect on what you have learned and get feedback. Read more about the power of blogging. If blogging is not for you then you can still get involved by reading the many educational blogs that already exist and using them to inspire you with new ideas and teaching tips.

3. Peer coaching – Working together with a trusted colleague to observe one another, provide support, advice, guidance and feedback on practice is great for improving your practice. It can help you to gain confidence in lesson observations and develop trust and dialogue between colleagues.

4. Attend a TeachMeet – These are an exciting way to share ideas from different schools, meet new people for potential collaborations and feel re-motivated. Find your nearest here.

5. Give video a go – Reflecting on your teaching is a powerful way to improve it. It allows you to see yourself as your students do and provides you with a real picture of what’s happening in your classroom. Learn how to reflect successfully and what to look for when you watch yourself teach.

6. Connect with someone from another school – You might spend time talking to colleagues at your school, which is hugely valuable, but it’s also great to get perspectives from counterparts in other schools to access new and relevant ideas from another setting. Even see if you can observe one another’s lessons.

7. Share your teaching – There are lots of advantages to opening up your classroom and letting trusted colleagues in, whether you're struggling or not. Read our blog about the importance of sharing your practice to find out more.

8. Set yourself clear goals – Knowing where you want your teaching to go and how you want to improve means that you will be able to monitor your progress and hopefully have the motivation to succeed. Discover how to find the motivation to change in our blog.

Have you revamped your CPD lately? Leave your suggestions in the comments below.