🗑️ End of year series, part 5: Teacher questions

🍎 Happy Teacher Appreciation Week from the Figma for Education Team!

This week, it's all about YOU — the educators who design futures, not just lesson plans.

At Figma for Education, we see the meaningful impact you create every day. You pour creativity, heart, and endless energy into shaping the future, and we’re endlessly grateful.

To celebrate, we’re donating to amazing DonorsChoose projects all week long — and we want your help!

Nominate an incredible teacher (or yourself!) by sharing a DonorsChoose project link with us on Instagram or Twitter. Each day, we’ll randomly select projects for donations to help bring classroom dreams to life.

Because when teachers have the right tools, anything is possible — just like your students' futures. Figma is always free for educators and students, helping you bring collaboration and creativity into your classroom anytime.

Thank you for everything you do 💛 You inspire us - and a generation of makers, every single day.

🎯 QUICK TEACHING STRATEGY 🎯

🏅 End the year with an EPIC Olympic review

Years ago, it was final exam season. And it was time to review.

Our review sessions had become the same old same old.

It was time for something new!

I wanted to do a whole week of review, so instead of five separate review sessions, I thought …

What if it was the “Epic Olympics Review"??

It was a summer Olympics year and it just seemed right!

In this post — End the school year with Epic Olympics Review — I share …

• the review games we used (tech + non-tech)

• a link to Olympics theme music you can play to start class

• templates to manage some of the games

• a leaderboard you can display with scores

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

❓ 20 teacher questions to ask over the summer

🏁 End of year series: Part 5 of 6 🏁

Over the summer, I have a lot of time to think.

I live in the country with my family, and we have a big yard. I mow several acres on my riding mower, and it usually takes two hours to do the whole thing.

Lots of thinking time.

I have three kids — one in college, two in high school — and they’re in a lot of activities. Volleyball tournaments. Basketball tournaments. We’re on the road a lot.

Lots of thinking time.

If you’re like me, you might have thinking time during summer break.

(Honestly, I hope that you have “slowing down” scheduled into your summer months. If you struggle with it, trust me, you’re not alone … so do I!)

In the hustle and bustle of a day-to-day teaching life, it’s easy for the big questions to get passed over for the pressing ones — grade these papers, plan these lessons, break up some horseplay in the hallway, etc.

But maybe over the summer, you’ll be in a position to think …

“What do I want my teaching legacy to be?”

I know … big and kind of deep, right?

But it’s like someone steering a boat on the open water. If they don’t keep a close eye on the compass, even a slight deviation will take them far, far from their destination.

In today’s post — 20 teacher questions to ask over the summer — I’m giving you some topics for thought. (As in … for me … I’d look at this before getting on the mower for two hours so I’d have something to think about.)

Here are a few of my favorites — and you can read all of the others (and a quick description) — in the full post.

1. What do I want my education legacy to be?

When your education career is finished, how will people describe you -- students, parents, co-workers, leadership, community? I've even written short mission statements about my goals as an educator to try to stay focused. Posting those in a place where you'll see them can help. (For me, that's always been taped to my computer monitor.)

2. What is my best lesson? What is my favorite lesson?

Let's reverse engineer it and see what we can learn. Think about why it's effective. Why it's fun. Why you (and/or the students) like it. Are there takeaways here that you can apply to other lessons? You might write those down someplace (a sticky note?) where you'll see them when you lesson plan.

6. How well am I using my prep period?

One year, I taught five classes back to back to back before lunch. Then I had my prep period. It was hard not to just collapse and take a nap through the whole thing. But if I wasn't mindful about it, I would spend time resting when I needed to plan and grade -- so I could go home at a reasonable hour, where I would REALLY rest. One practice that has helped me is keeping a time log of activities during my work time -- start time and activity I'm starting.

9. Are there times when I could do less for my students?

A post called “Teachers, Have the Courage to be Less Helpful” by educator Peter Pappas got me thinking about this. "If students are going to be productive in a dynamic society and workplace they will need to be agile, fluid learners," he wrote. "Every summer, teachers get to re-invent themselves – to rethink their instructional approach. Here’s your essential question for the coming school year – 'How can I stop scaffolding every task for students, and have the courage to be less helpful?'"

17. What is my best quality as an educator?

A little honest self-validation isn't a bad thing. I'm my own worst critic, and if you're like me, you spend way more brainpower than you should analyzing your weaknesses. Take a moment to reflect on your strengths. What are you good at? What do your students appreciate about you?

You might even ask a few students -- or even some colleagues or parents -- about your best quality. It's not about self aggrandizing. It's about getting clear on your strengths so you can maximize them.

18. Where could I stand to take a risk?

I've heard it said that if you haven't failed recently, maybe you aren't stretching yourself enough or taking enough risks. Those types of statements tend to oversimplify sometimes, but maybe there's a bit of truth to them. After several years of teaching high school Spanish the textbook way -- textbooks, worksheets, workbooks -- I wasn't getting the results I wanted. I took a risk and started teaching Spanish conversationally with less reliance on the textbooks. The road was bumpy and there were failures, but I'll never look back as an educator.

Is it time for you take a chance on something where you're not sure how it'll go -- for the sake of your students?

… plus 15 other questions …

I encourage you to scroll through the questions in the post and let one — or two — or six! — of them speak to you.

Hold them in the back of your mind … maybe this week, maybe next month … maybe on a slow summer day when you’re ready for it.

If we don’t stop to think about where we’re heading — and how we’re doing it — we’re likely to find ourselves at the end of our career saying, “Well, I hope I made the difference I envisioned.”

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!