It has been four months that I have been keeping a diary in which I write about what I did in the classroom, what wanted to teach, what I taught and what I should do to teach better. It all started with the idea of being observed. Although I was an experienced teacher, I had never been observed till the day Tony came to my classroom. But before, in some of our workshops Tony suggested us to keep a journal in which we can be honest with ourselves in terms of our teaching.
Keeping a “Teaching Diary” equals keeping the track of your professional improvement.
As I continue to my professional development, I came up with many choices about what kind of a teacher I want to be. I could be just a teacher-I mean go to work,teach and go back home, without any preparation any extra efforts to be a better teacher. Or I could be an enthusiastic teacher who wants to develop herself all the time. I guess I choose the second one and that’s why I’m writing these lines.
Here are the benefits of keeping a teaching diary for me :
- First of all it is my own reflection of my teaching and it is private.
- I can easily see the things that do not go well in my teaching and I can criticize my own teaching
- Let’s come to good things 🙂 Of course it also helps me in seeing my positive sides in my teaching and these things encourage me more.
- It became a habit for me to develop myself.
- It helps me avoid self-laceration: I can easily blame myself, if there is something unwanted in my teaching. At first it was a bit difficult for me to see the negative aspects but through failure one can easily reach success- we call this experience 😉
- It helps me plan better lessons, and this is a sign that i can develop myself through reflection 🙂
“You can deal with anything if you’ve got honesty, because from honesty comes trust and with trust you can communicate.”
And I believe that if we have this honesty within ourselves, we will have a better teaching and learning environment.
Aysun 😉
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