The Power of Priorities: Center Your Teaching by Choosing a Focus Area

Anchor your teaching with a single focus, and watch your practice gain clarity and momentum.

DR. JEN GOWERS
Instructional Specialist​
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The start of the year, with its fresh energy, can be incredibly energizing. It can also be relatively overwhelming. There are so many things happening day to day in a school, and we want our classrooms to be excellent, even exceptional, amidst all of the happenings with our young people, families, colleagues, administration, and communities. 

You have likely heard the saying that if you have more than three priorities, you actually have none. It’s true! If we’re focused on accomplishing too many things, we may only see slight improvements in the many things we have chosen. 

But when we focus on a single priority, we can achieve meaningful growth as well as stay centered, maintain momentum, and preserve our personal and professional sanity in the process. Here’s how this plays out day to day:

1. In the sea of logistics, initiatives, and next right moves, you have a consistent anchor.
2. You create the agency and authority to direct, or co-direct the year ahead for yourself.
3. When your coach or manager comes to visit you, you already know the focus of the visit.

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How to Prioritize: Choosing a Focal Area

​I have the joy of journeying with teachers and leaders as a coach, and this is the process I most recommend to select (or co-select) a priority:

• First, take some quiet, reflective time to consider what you’d like to prioritize this year. Think of where you are in your career, what you’d like to improve, and what feels like the next right move this year. One of the best ways to do this is to list out your strengths and your values by making a Page One — an accounting of what matters to you most. You can also use the Covey Quadrants/Eisenhower Matrix to identify what is important, but not urgent — that is, the things that are often most powerful for us to do, but the easiest to put off for another day (think, exercise, vacation…and your priorities too, ironically!) 
• Second, connect with your leadership team. Align your thinking to the school or district wide instructional focus, so they can see how your improvement will improve the school, too. Alternatively, align your thinking to the metric your school uses for evaluation to find common language for naming that priority. Discuss deeply to ensure alignment with your leadership team to find the highest and right priority for you. Your team has different perspectives and perhaps a wider view, too, so their input and insight is invaluable to you when selecting your priorities.
• Third, meet and work together with your team to co-construct a plan of what working on your priority looks like over the arc of your year. Where do you want to be at year’s end? What are the next right moves toward greatness? Again, your Page One can really help you here, and so can whatever your school or organization’s method may be!

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Naming, co-creating and making a plan for excellence with just one instructional priority can anchor you and focus discussions with leadership when they arise. This way, you stay clear and focused, and they do, too. Best of all, everyone sees the growth, improvement and progress you’re making all year long in your classroom. 

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Your Next Step

Focus Your Practice, Grow Your Impact
Teacher as Researcher can help you reflect on key moments in the classroom, identify a focus for professional growth, and turn insights into actionable strategies. Through inquiry, writing, and community dialogue, you’ll connect your daily practice to deeper pedagogy and make your instructional priorities meaningful all year long. Learn more & register ​→