Keep, Eliminate, Adapt

Late summer is my favorite time as an educator. The back-to-school ads are appearing, and I start envisioning all the freshly sharpened pencils and young faces that will soon appear at my classroom door. I am excited by new ideas, but before diving headlong into planning the next big project or creating a system that will finally get all my students to remember their homework, I must take some time to make sure to reflect on the past. Only then can I effectively plan for the future. I structure my summer reflection around three verbs: keep (the things I want to continue doing), eliminate (the things that are not serving my students or me), and adapt (the things I could improve).

Keep

Teachers, in general, are good at keeping things. I have student projects from 10 years ago! Fortunately, these artifacts of years past, in addition to more formal data such as test scores, student surveys, and project reflections, can give insights into what I want to keep doing next year.

When considering practices to continue, I differentiate between things students and I like doing and what truly improves student learning. Some favorite activities from last semester didn’t yield the learning outcomes I’d hoped for. It’s tempting to keep doing what’s fun, but activity-centered lesson planning is rarely as effective as intentional-content-based lesson design.

One consistent positive I found was providing substantive feedback. For example, one student noted, “I love that she leaves a response for every assignment no matter how small. It shows her investment, which helped me feel connected.” That reminder validates the hours we teachers spend, both during and after school, writing thoughtful comments on assignments. Feedback helps students not only by identifying and correcting errors but also by relationship building, a key to student engagement and learning.

Another impactful practice was my corrections and retake policy. I provide in-class time for students to tutor each other and try again, replacing the original grade with the new score if higher. Research shows that corrections and retakes help reduce test anxiety and increase overall student performance. Comments like this, “I appreciate that you had mercy on students when they mess up—a lot. I really messed up in a lot of my classes this semester due to how rocky my personal life has been,” remind me that giving students second chances isn’t about lowering standards. Instead, it’s about recognizing their humanity.

I was concerned that my high school students might see structures like daily team builders and class jobs as too juvenile. Instead, comments indicated that setting a consistent routine, such as assignments always due Wednesday, helped students manage their time and reduce cognitive load. One student appreciated how “easy it was to remember when things were due.” Structure is not boring, it is an essential scaffold for safety. If routines, feedback, and retakes will all stay in my fall plans, the next question is: What can I eliminate?

Eliminate

Student answers for what to stop were predictable: homework, dress code, group work. All of those are requirements of the school or the curriculum that, while I can try to make each more effective, have some intended purpose.

Other activities are less purposeful. I love answering emails instantly, feeling I am being a model of communication. Sometimes I like to end the day by putting all the markers in complete sets in their supply boxes. I especially enjoy reformatting worksheets just to make them look nicer. But when I peruse a list of all my teaching-related activities in a week, I find that such tasks are just pseudo-productivity. These tasks feel satisfying and allow me to check boxes off my to-do list, but they have little direct impact on student learning. Definitely things to eliminate!

For teaching tasks that cannot be eliminated, like grading, I aim for greater efficiency. This brings me to the last query: “What do I adapt?”

Adapt

The final step is about refinement, not reinvention. There’s no pressure to overhaul everything. In fact, change for its own sake can be counterproductive. This year my “adapt” list centers on incorporating new technologies.

Artificial intelligence tools hold great promise for educators of all levels. I must admit I am still conflicted about how much to outsource to technology versus to do myself. I find comfort in the words of B.F. Skinner, the original designer of the “teaching machine,” who asserted that “the teacher’s relations to the pupil cannot be duplicated by a mechanical device. Instrumental help would merely improve these relations.” Skinner reminds me that AI cannot replace the teacher, but instead it can let me do what teachers do best: connecting on a human level and inspiring students.

I am only at the beginning of my AI journey, using simple technology fixes like email “snoozing” and varying the reading level of texts with ChatGPT. I struggle to craft high-level assessment questions, so this year I am excited to try QuestionWell to get AI assistance with creating questions to provide more opportunities for formative assessments. I hope AI can help education adapt, taking on algorithmic tasks like grading, while leaving teachers to provide the human touch.

When we return to school for teacher preparation days, I plan to discuss my key takeaways from “Keep, Eliminate, Adapt” with my colleagues and administration. I will share not just for personal accountability, but also as a contribution to our collective professional growth. I encourage other teachers to do the same because, whether through department meetings, staff professional development sessions, or conversations in the lounge, your reflection might spark someone else’s breakthrough. Helping other educators keep learning is one practice solidly in the keep pile for the next year.