Top Tips For Teaching Yoga In Schools - Tip #15: What Do Your Students Think?
Hi there, and welcome back!
I can’t believe we are already at the end of March…it feels like this month JUST started, but here we are almost at spring break, and almost at 4th quarter.
For many kids yoga teachers, the quarterly transition can mean wrapping up with one group of kids and getting ready to start teaching the next.
Regardless of when you transition, it’s important to gather feedback at the end of each session, so you can gauge what worked and what didn’t.
Today’s tip will dive into more detail about how to gather this feedback, and why it matters.
Enjoy, and feel free to leave a comment below about your favorite ways to gather feedback from students.
Tip #15: What Do Your Students Think?
One of the recurring questions that I’m asked when I explain to people both within and outside the yoga world that I teach yoga full-time in a school is “How do you know that your program is working?”
I’ve heard various iterations of this question over the years, especially from principals during job interviews.
And, while there are countless ways to track progress, both quantitatively and qualitatively, I always come back to what I feel is the most powerful indicator of success: student reflection and feedback.
I regularly build in opportunities for students to reflect on their practice. These opportunities for reflection let me know if and how students are using the tools they’re learning in class, in addition to providing me with an informal way to “assess” mastery.
Additionally, if you’re looking to expand your program to more schools or after school programs, these reflections provide meaningful sound bites to use (with parental permission, of course!) when interviewing with administrators or applying for grant funding.
Want to learn more about how to build in opportunities for reflection and assess student progress? Join me for my private mentorship program. Each session is tailor-made to your specific needs, whether it’s creating feedback forms, or analyzing the data you received from it. I work with only a limited number of mentorship clients each quarter, so don’t delay signing up!
Tip Takeaway: Build in opportunities for students to reflect on what they’ve learned in your program. Come up with 3-4 questions you could have students reflect on at various points throughout your program. Allow them to share, in written form, if and how they use yoga or mindfulness in their everyday lives, and why. From there, identify two or three quotes you could use as sound bites to share with school administrators...but don’t forget, you need to get parental consent first!