Teachers are expected to acquire new knowledge and skills throughout their professional careers.  As new materials and techniques are developed, good teachers incorporate those that will enhance their classroom performance and benefit their students.  A good teacher continually strives to broaden his/her knowledge and improve his/her skills.

Critical self-evaluation is essential to refining teaching skills, as it is a mechanism to structure growth.  Through this process a teacher can identify best teaching practices and areas that need improvement.  These evaluations can provide the basis for motivation and self-improvement by pinpointing personal strengths and weaknesses in order to develop teaching skills.  As self-evaluation is often the only form of consistent feedback for teachers, it is a crucial tool for professional development.

           
Self-evaluation requires a teacher to observe and assess his/her own teaching behaviors through reflection.  It is a reflective process in which a teacher recalls the lesson, and then critically analyzes the data to determine elements that were effective in achieving the instructional objectives and areas that could be improved.

           
At the conclusion of a lesson, a good teacher questions his/her teaching skills.  He/she asks questions such as:

·        What did I do most effectively?

·        What did I do that was not effective in reaching the objectives?

·        What problems arose during the lesson and how did I solve them?

·        How could I have made the lesson more interesting?

·        What other strategies could I have used to attain the objectives?

·        What else could I have done to maintain student interest?