Success takes planning. As a teacher, you will need to constantly evaluate the performance of your students and of yourself. But how do you know what questions you need to ask in order to effectively analyze how everything is going? Below are some reflection questions broken down into sets for before teaching, during teaching, and after teaching.

Before Teaching

1. How do I engage and teach my students?
• What do I want my students to learn?
• What is the purpose of what I’m going to do?
• What are the student outcomes?
• How do I integrate content areas?
• How do I make the content multicultural, gender, and socioeconomically appropriate?
• What are the needs of my students?

2. How do I keep my students interested?
• What approach/model/style works best with my students (e.g., cooperative learning, Socratic seminar, lecture)?
• How will I group my students?

3. 
What resources will I need?
• How much time do I allocate?
• How much space will I need?
• What concrete materials will I need?

4. What background knowledge do my students have?
• What background knowledge do my students bring to the learning situation?

During Teaching

1. Have I used the students’ prior knowledge to gain their interest and give them a focus?

2. Am I presenting the lesson well?

3. Am I constantly evaluating my students?
• Am I providing feedback to my 
students?
• Am I asking my students open-ended and analytical questions?

4. Am I responding to the immediate needs of my students?
• Are my students actively engaged?

5. Am I introducing new concepts and information?
• Am I motivating and 
challenging my students?
• Am I providing my students 
with behaviors and skills to work on their own?

6. Am I reviewing and debriefing with my students?
• Am I summarizing information for my students?

After Teaching

1. Have I been self-reflective and thoughtful about my teaching?

2. Did I assess the success of my students?

3. How will I report students’ achievement to parents?

4. How will I provide feedback to my students?

5. What will I do differently the next time I teach a similar lesson?

Consider these questions your outline for success. Keep a list of each on hand to help guide you through the day – and beyond!