What might it look like if as a professional learning community, we took ten minutes out of every week to answer these questions from the context of our professional practice and shared our results with each other?

1. What are you currently learning about professionally? What problem are you wrestling with in your practice? Which skills are you trying to master?

2. How is that learning going? How do you know?

3. What do you think are your next steps of professional growth?

Sharing might look like small physical groups circling up at the end of a staff meeting. It might mean responding to a quick Google Form at the end of every week. Reflections could even happen on Google Slides, Flipgrid, Padlet, or Twitter — all amazing tools of collaborative learning. However it rolled out, I think it could be a powerful practice.

Remember: students learn more when they are active, invested, and involved in the process. When they are given agency and ownership.

Teachers are no different.

Welcome to SPARKS: mini-segments intended to spark your thinking and ignite your practice. These short episodes are based on my written reflections, which you can find on the Teachers on Fire Magazine at Medium.com.

Read the blog post featured in this episode at https://medium.com/teachers-on-fire/self-reflection-as-professional-development-881a72652ea4?source=friends_link&sk=dab11d0217ab5bbdce8bdd02602cb23f.

My name is Tim Cavey, and I’m proud to contribute to the education conversation through the Teachers on Fire podcast. Make sure to connect with me @TeachersOnFire on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to catch more from me and hear from amazing educators who are bringing growth and transformation to K-12 education today.

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Song Track Credits:

Sunrise Drive by South London Hifi

Roots of Legend by Density & Time

Species by Diamond Ortiz

Anthem by The Grand Affair

*All songs retrieved from the YouTube Audio Library at https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/.