Winter 2014 is the semester of the wise GA/TA. Wisdom, as you know, comes with the experience that leads to good decisions. What no one ever talks about, however, is that experience often comes from colossal failures that we’re careful never to repeat. That’s why the self-review is an important part of developing as an educator and a life-long learner. While it may not be fun to do, jotting down a list of your worst teaching experiences can help you identify areas in your craft that you want to work on.

Or maybe you can just use Todd Finley’s list. Two years ago, as part of Edutopia‘s 20th anniversary, the Associate Professor at East Carolina University wrote about his 20 “Biggest Teaching Blunders“. Finley prefaced his list as follows:

We teachers make 0.7 instructional decisions per minute, according to research summaries by Hilda Borko and Richard Shavelson. We make them in contexts that shift from hour to hour in overstuffed portables with finicky projectors, after grading, without enough time to collaborate, without enough information and with too much. We look confident when we’re not, look enthusiastic during second period when demoralized by first. We speed up for the majority when a few need us to slow down. We make decisions about what’s important on festive days and during dark ones, such as 9/11, when raw grief and disorientation filled America’s classrooms like hurricanes of ash.

In honor of Edutopia’s 20th Birthday, here are 20 embarrassing teaching mistakes I’d rather not repeat.

So what kinds of things made it on Finley’s list? We especially like “11. Hiding Ignorance” and “4. Pre-Lesson Agonizing”. You’d also be surprised how important “10. Rejecting Sensible Footwear” can impact your teaching (and how much it gets noticed by your students). See any mistakes on the list that you can identify with?

Read more at http://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-teacher-mistakes-todd-finley.