Blogging continues to become one of the most popular forms of written communication in our digital age. There are blogs on just about any topic you can imagine. Teachers have an opportunity to blog about their professional experiences, which can be an essential tool for growth and improving one’s teaching methods. We have compiled a list of five reasons why teachers should be blogging.
1. Reflect on Your Craft
Growing as educator means learning from your experiences. With a weekly blog, you can be honest with yourself and your readers by looking at what worked and what needs improvement. You can track your methods over the course of the school year, and be able to compare and contrast how you handled similar material during another term. The ability to analyze data based on your teaching craft will only give you more ability to better assess what you have accomplished. It also creates a sense of transparency between you, parents, your students, colleagues, and administrators. You are opening the dialogue and showing the intention behind your work. This kind of open communication will allow for stronger professional relationships and ultimately, help you be the best teacher you can be.
2. Share Your Excitement
What better way to support your career than by having a place to share what makes it so amazing? A teacher blog is your opportunity to be a cheerleader, a motivational speaker, a true ambassador for the field. Are you thrilled with how a lesson plan worked out? Share it. Witnessed your students intelligence and creativity flow through work? Share it. Learn a new teaching method that reaches students of all learning levels? That’s right, share it! The blog is your place celebrate the great accomplishments you, your students, and your colleagues achieve.
3. Engage in the Online Community
Thanks to the digital age, we have the opportunity as educators to connect with other professionals all across the country and world. Your blog can be a place where important issues are discussed, questions are answered, and even a place for support. Many teachers are working on their lesson plans well into the night, and it’s helpful to use your blog as a forum to seek out information at any time. Helping each other is something educators should do to better improve the quality of teaching, and your online blog can offer that service to any teacher looking for assistance.
4. Create Your Own Professional Development
A blog dedicated to the teaching profession can help you seek out new forms of professional development. Whether it’s review and response blogs towards professional journals and articles, or reviewing new teaching methods within a particular unit or subject, the blog can track how you are pushing yourself to learn outside of the classroom. The blog is a written avenue to seek out the latest theories and practices and for you to synthesize them in a way others can see. You are leading your blog readers through their own professional development, as well as your own.
5. Lead Your Students by Example
Blogging continues to become an essential form of communication. Your students will benefit to maintain their own blogs. It’s an outlet that allows them to continue to improve upon their writing skills and lesson from class. What better way to help students in the writing process than by being their blogging role model? Encourage students to frequent your blog and see how you use the writing process to journal, instruct, reflect, and promote all sorts of educational content. If you are having students write blogs for assignments, you can even house their blogs on your site. Continue to push the importance of writing through your blog and guide your students to do the same.
Do you blog about your teaching career? We’d love find out what you post about and how it’s helped your craft.