7 habits of highly successful teachers

A few months ago, I interviewed a handful of retired teachers to find out what made their years successful. These are the useful tips I decided to share with you today.

These are useful tips for becoming a highly successful teacher:

1. Plan next week’s lessons in little chunks either before or after school.  Dedicate your free time each work day to planning for the next week’s lessons for just one class.  For example, if you are an elementary teacher, plan next week’s Reading on Monday, Math on Tuesday, Writing on Wednesday, Science/Social Studies on Thursday.  This way you can save your weekend for relaxation and maybe some grading time.

2. Grade as many papers as you can through student conferences.  While your students are working on projects or taking tests on Friday, ask them to your back table for a short grading conference. Students should bring you all of their work for the week, and you can give them instant feedback through conferencing.  This works well with grades 3 and up. Then you can spend your weekend or recess time (if you’re like me) grading those pesky Friday tests.

3. Make a folder for the following papers before the school year starts: parent communication, office communication, send home, signed papers, evaluations, graded papers, not graded papers, tests, and important.  Keep less than 10 folders for paperwork. More will just get jumbled around your classroom.

4. Keep a small notebook on your desk to record weird incidents throughout the day.  Record at least 5 minutes worth of notes each day. I like to do this right after school while things are still fresh in my mind. Consider subjects like student disagreements, student misbehavior, student misunderstandings, and anything “awkward”.  This will save you a lot of grief when angry parents come in wanting to know why XYZ happened. Having a notebook with quotes from students will also make you look like a true professional to your principal.

5. Make a point to reach out to at least two coworkers a week.  Have a brief conversation about curriculum and what’s working for you.  Ask them a few questions about their classroom.  At some point, you will need help with something, so building rapport with other teachers is essential to your success.

6. Create one new engaging lesson a quarter that involves students and parent volunteers.  This topic will inevitably come up in your evaluation, so make sure it is an easy subject for you to discuss.  I like having a quarterly event like a fifty states fair every year.  Here's a product that I created to help me organize information for a 50 states fair for my students.

7. Lastly, if something isn’t working for you, don’t be afraid to change it.  If you start reading a class book aloud, and it’s not getting students excited after a few chapters, switch the book! Last year, I read two chapters of a book, and I looked up only to see that 3 kids were actually napping!  If you start a lesson that you can tell will be a bomb, scrap the lesson in exchange for an old favorite.  Don’t be afraid to fail or get off your original plan.  As long as you stay positive with the kids, they will never even realize you even made a mistake.

I hope these tips that I learned will help you in your successes as well!