Why Strategic Planning is Important for Teachers
When most people think about strategic planning, they often think about organizations that benefit from having a strategic plan in place. Strategic planning has been around in the education sector since around 1980, but a lot of teachers and those in the education sector have not yet embraced it. Strategic planning can help make your vision clearer and give you a sense of direction as a teacher. If you have not embraced strategic planning, this article will discuss why it is so important, not only for teachers but for the whole education sector at large, as well as the tools you can use, such as a whiteboard online.
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It Engages Parents, The community and Other Stakeholders
An essential part of the strategic planning process is engaging all stakeholders in feedback sessions. When all stakeholders are involved, it helps them feel like they are part of what the teacher is trying to do or achieve. These feedback sessions, especially those that happen between teachers and their colleagues or peers, can be an important part of developing and refining the strategic plan further.
This is because everyone will come with different ideas on how best a teacher can improve outcomes and how they can realign their goals to make it easier to reach them. Teachers should always invite this type of feedback because it makes them better at their job.
Fortunately, there are several tools that can help teachers not only with getting feedback from colleagues and streamlining their strategic plans, but also brainstorming new ideas. Teachers can use an online whiteboard to brainstorm, plan and improve upon their ideas, and strategically plan through collaborating with their colleagues and peers.
It Helps Create a Cohesive Vision
As a teacher, it is very difficult to achieve your goals if you do not have a cohesive vision. A clear and focused vision makes it easier to set and aim for your goals. It also helps you understand and explain to others what your visions and goals are and why you chose them specifically.
In the larger education sector, especially at schools, a cohesive strategic plan creates a sense of responsibility for all teachers. When everyone is aware of their responsibility and what they are aiming for, it gets easier to fulfill the vision set at the start.
A strategic plan with a cohesive vision also enables stakeholders to have a voice and to agree on what to prioritize so they can focus on the same things to improve education as a whole.
It Makes Tracking Progress Easier
A strategic plan can give you something to measure progress against. In your strategic plan, you will already have goals in mind, and it is these goals that you should be aiming for. When you have a strategic plan as a teacher and understand your school’s strategic plan, your progress can impact your success as well as the success of the school as a whole.
When planning your strategy and defining your goals, it is important to set key performance metrics(KPIs) for yourself. If the school has an overall strategic plan, then its KPIs and goals can extend to all teachers at the school. This will ensure that you are not only aligned with your personal goals and KPIs as a teacher but that you are also aligned with those of the school as a whole. This way, you can do your part in impacting the success of the school and that of yourself as an individual teacher.
It is important to remember that your strategic plan should not be rigid. Things will change and your strategic plan will evolve as opportunities and challenges arise, and as you hit each of our milestones and achieve each of your goals.
It Gives Your Room For Improvement
Many teachers are still using approaches and ideas that have not been effective in decades. They surmise that since things have been done this way for a long time, it is the right way to do things. Having a strategic plan that incorporates different goals allows you to think creatively to come up with new ways of ensuring you and your students reach set goals.
That could be trying new approaches and innovations in teaching such as technology and learning gamification. The time you take to incorporate these new ways of thinking, teaching, and learning will pay dividends in getting students engaged, interested, and curious about learning and will translate into better outcomes for both you and your students.
To help with improvement, give yourself time for reflection and planning. Overhauling your strategic plan and teaching methods can be very challenging if you do not take the time to do it right and if you leave old approaches to teaching and learning sitting too long.
Strategic Planning Reduces Stress
As a teacher, it is already stressful enough thinking about the act of teaching and ensuring your students have the best outcomes possible. When you know the intended direction you will be moving in and towards, it gets easier to plan day-to-day activities, lessons, and everything else that goes into teaching.
You will walk into the classroom confident in knowing what you want to achieve, always have the right teaching materials ready and questions to any answers your students might ask you. When you operate in a space like this, it gets easier to achieve your teaching goals and it removes most of the stress that comes with the daily realities of being a teacher.
It Ensures Students are Catered To
The most important part of being a teacher is ensuring your students’ education is taken care of. Strategic planning provides a framework for teaching and for measuring success. Also, a strategic plan incorporates ways to improve the provision of education to ensure the first need of your students, getting educated, is met.
As a teacher, one should be doing everything one can to ensure the best outcomes for their students. Having a strategic plan goes a long way in ensuring this. It provides a framework that helps improve teaching and learning, gives teachers goals to aim for, and, most importantly, gives them a clear direction to follow.
