A notes on reflective practice which is necessary for a teacher

1. A TEACHER EDUCTION TECHNIQUE

2. Meaning
 Reflective practice means more than fleeting thoughts
before, during, or after a lesson;
 it means examining what you do in the classroom and why
you do it.
 When teachers think about their teaching, they usually
come up with statements such as
 “My lesson went well” or “My students seemed not to be
interested today” or
 “I did not like that lesson,” and then they make decisions
about how they will conduct future classes. Would this be
considered reflective practice? If yes, why? If not, why not?

3. Reflective Practice is…..

4. Reflective Practice is not….
 Only for NEW Teachers
 An education fashion statement
 Quick and easy
 Waste of preparation time
 Activity can be done as SELF
 Through experience – mistakes will be corrected
 Less for experienced person

5. DEFINITION
 Boud, Keogh and Walker (1985) suggest reflection can yield
more when it is more purposeful:
Reflection is an important human activity in which people
recapture their experience, think about it, mull over &
evaluate it. It is this working with experience that is
important in learning.
 Crawley (2005) uses Hillier (2002) to develop this idea of
reflection with more purpose and structure, using the term
‘critical reflection’.
Without critical reflection, teaching will remain at best
uninformed, and at worst ineffective, prejudiced and
constraining’

6.  Reflection: the foundation of purposeful learning
 Reflection is an active process of witnessing one’s own
experience in order to take a closer look at it,
sometimes to direct attention to it briefly, but often to
explore it in greater depth.
 This can be done in the midst of an activity or as an
activity in itself.
 The key to reflection is learning how to take
perspective on one’s own actions and experience—in
other words, to examine that experience rather than
just living it.

7. Need
 there are two main reasons for using critical reflection:
- We can question our routine, convenient, everyday
practices and ask questions about what really does and
doesn’t work.
- We can challenge some of our deeper social and
cultural thoughts, feelings and reactions, or what
Hillier (2002: 7) calls our ‘taken for granted
assumptions’

8. The Gibbs cycle
 Gibbs (1988) described a reflective cycle that is often
used by education practitioners, which:
 ✤ encourages clear and objective description, analysis
and evaluation of your own experience
 ✤ leads you to use this information in considering
what you have learned from the experience and what
you might do differently if the situation arose again.

9. 1.Description
2.Feelings
3.Evaluation4. Analysis
5. Conclusion

10. Benefits
 ✤ It can improve the quality of work.
 ✤ It enables to view events objectively.
 ✤ It enables to transfer what you do well to other similar situations.
 ✤ It improves professional judgment.
 ✤ It helps to identify staff development needs.
 ✤ It helps to identify where we can make changes or improvements in
what We do.
 ✤ It helps to plan for the future.
 ✤ It helps respond more positively to change.
 ✤ You can learn from the experience of others.
 ✤ It makes more confident and competent practitioner.
 ✤ You are able to take ownership of your learning.
 ✤ It can show the difference between what you say you do and what
you actually do

11. Benefits for learners
 ✤ You will have a better understanding of their
reactions.
 ✤ If you help your own learners reflect, you and they
can learn together.
 ✤ They may benefit from a more personalised
approach to teaching that accommodates their own
unique skills and attributes.
 ✤ There will be continuous improvement in the
quality of the delivery and assessment they receive.

12. Benefits for colleagues
 ✤ There will be higher levels of shared professional
expertise and curriculum planning.
 ✤ Understanding of culture, policies and the
educational context will be increased.
 ✤ Fear of external partnerships and collaboration will
be reduced.
 ✤ Levels of professional support and communication
will be increased.

13. What are the benefits of reflective
practice?
 Roffey-Barentson and Malthouse (2009)
1. Improving your teaching practice
 If you take the time to reflect on your teaching, and reflect on how
different parts of what you do work well, where aspects of your teaching
can be improved, and how problems which arise could be solved, that
is bound to help you to improve your teaching.
2. Learning from reflective practice
 There is a good range of evidence that purposeful reflection helps
‘deep’ learning take place, and for you as a teacher, it will help you to
make connections between different aspects of your teaching and what
goes on around your teaching. Reflective practice will help you gain
new learning and use it in your teaching.

14.  3. Enhancing problem solving skills
 When starting off with reflecting on your teaching you
may tend to concentrate on problems which arise. By
carefully and honestly considering and analysing those
problems, you will improve your own capacity to find
solutions.
4. Becoming a critical thinker
 Critical thinking is about ‘thinking well’, and ‘taking
charge’ of your own thinking (Elder and Paul, 1994),
and reflective practice will help you recognise and
adjust what you think to take account of changes in
circumstances, and by doing that help you to be better
equipped to find solutions which work.

15.  5. Making Decisions
 As you reflect on your practice, you will find you need to make
decisions about what to do (or not to do) next. You may well
have a number of choices which you have to weigh up, and
deciding which one to take can be difficult. If you regularly
reflect on your teaching in depth, you are regularly going to
come across the need to make decisions, but the results of your
reflective practice will help you to make those decisions in a
more informed, thoughtful and objective manner.
6. Improving your own organisational skills
 You will notice as this section progresses that the benefits of
reflective practice can reaching into every aspect of your
professional work as a teacher. If you are thinking carefully about
what you are doing, identifying possible actions and choices,
trying out solutions, and adjusting what you do to take account
of the results, this involves a good deal of organisation. By
breaking down issues and problems into steps or stages, you will
get better at organising your time and your activity to
concentrate on the important, ‘solution-focussed’ actions.

16.  7. Managing personal change
 Working in education involves managing regular, rapid, pressured and
often confusing change, which can be one of the most difficult aspects
of being a teacher. If you are using the techniques of reflective practice,
which involves, calm, thoughtful, honest, critical and organised
thinking and action, this should introduce a calming and less
emotional response to that change. As reflective practice is itself
focussed on seeking positive improvements and solutions, managing
change more effectively should take place.
8. Acknowledging personal values
 There will be things which take place within your professional situation
as a teacher which you will wholeheartedly agree with, and others
which will worry or alarm you. This is because they may agree or
disagree with your own personal values such as what you believe in,
and what you think is wrong or right. How these are affected by
teaching will vary, but you will almost certainly come across major
clashes of values as part of your work. Reflective practice is an excellent
way of acknowledging and recognising that those values exist and have
an effect, but which concentrates on helping you to choose approaches
and actions which can help you to resolve those clashes without it
adversely affecting the professional balance of your work as a teacher.

17.  9. Taking your own advice
 Teachers are often more critical of their own teaching than
anyone else, and it could be possible for this to develop into an
attitude about teaching which is negative and destructive. The
techniques and approaches of reflective practice will place you in
a position where you are an informed, positive agent in your own
development and improvement and one where you can ‘take
your own advice’ with a confidence tht it is reflective, focussed
and informed advice.
10. Recognising emancipatory benefits
 If you reflect on the nine benefits of reflective practice which
have so far been described, you will clearly see that this is a
model of practice which represents the teacher as someone with
influence over their own teaching and their own destiny as a
teacher. This is what is at the heart of reflective practice, and as
such it should help considerably to free you from some of the
burdens which can weigh teachers down, and refresh your
confidence and your teaching.

18. Benefits of Reflective Practice
 Increased learning from an experience for situation
 Promotion of deep learning
 Identification of personal and professional strengths
and areas for improvement
 Identification of educational needs
 Acquisition of new knowledge and skills

19. Benefits to Reflective Practice contd…
 Further understanding of own beliefs, attitudes and
values
 Encouragement of self-motivation and self-directed
learning
 Could act as a source of feedback
 Possible improvements of personal and clinical
confidence

20. Limitations of Reflective Practice
 Not all practitioners may understand the reflective
process
 May feel uncomfortable challenging and evaluating
own practice
 Could be time consuming
 May have confusion as to which situations/experiences
to reflect upon
 May not be adequate to resolve clinical problems

21. TECHNIQUES
 Look in
- Find a space to focus on self
- Pay attention to your thoughts and
emotions
- Write down those thoughts and emotions
 Look Out
- Write a description of the situation
(thoughts, feelings & emotions
- what issues seem significant?

22. Self Talk Questions
 What was I trying to achieve?
 Why did I respond as I did?
 What were the consequences of my teaching?
 How were others feeling?
 How did I know this?
-

23. Generic Questions for Reflective Practice
 What happened?
What took place?
What do your colleagues think took place?
What do your students think took place?
What area of practice needed improvement or change?
What worked really well?

24.  Why did it happen?
What were the factors contributing to the problem /
success?
What assumptions and underlying beliefs and motives
were involved from you, your learners and your
colleagues?
Can you recognise any theory in what took place?
What external factors had any effect?
Generic Questions for Reflective Practice

25.  What can be done?
What are the possible ways to improve?
How could you use some of the success factors in your
teaching?
How do your colleagues think you could use some of the
success factors in your teaching?
How do your students think you could use some of the
success factors in your teaching?
What ways forward are there?
Which parts of the changes are the most straightforward /
least straightforward?
How will this affect your professional situation?
Generic Questions for Reflective Practice

26.  What will be done?
What action will you take?
What impact do you believe it will have on you, your
learners and your colleagues?
When will you take action?
Generic Questions for Reflective Practice

27. A learning diary
 A learning diary is a student's written thoughts of their
learning experiences. It will help you in your personal
growth and help you recognize strengths and weaknesses
in your learning. The aim of a learning diary (or a reflective
log) is to give you an opportunity to:
 Keep a record of the work you undertake
 Note any existing skills you develop, and new skills you
learn
 Identify areas you would like to improve
 Reflective practice skills will stand you in good stead
throughout your working life. You are teaching yourself to
be your own teacher and mentor.

28. KEEP A LEARNING DIARY
 You can do this by writing into a Word document on your computer
and saving it as your learning diary - dating your entries and adding to
the document during the time of your studies. You can start a blog on
your college or university blog site - or set up a Wordpress or Blogger
blog.
You can use an exercise book in which to write your diary. It is
important to find a regular time to write. Jot down your thoughts on
particular incidents a few minutes each day or every few days rather
than spend a couple of hours once a week. It is best to write while
situations are fresh in your mind. Write about:Activities, situations,
experiences that went well or you found difficult
 Unexpected problems or issues
 How you feel about the way you are doing things (your understanding,
actions, awareness)?
 How effective did you feel in a given situation?
 Anything else you feel is important to you

29. Get FEED BACK
 Getting good marks motivates most students. However getting
feedback is probably the most important factor and a smart student
will make the most of it. You will reflect on the feedback and build on
it. Here are some tips on getting feedback and how to develop your own
work with that feedback.Get as much feedback on your work as you can
 Make use of your feedback. Lecturers' comments on your returned
essays are important in telling you what you are doing well and what
can be improved
 Treat feedback as a learning opportunity - even if you haven't achieved
what you wanted. Try to think of strategies for turning your weaknesses
into strengths
 Don't place too much emphasis on any grades you are given. If you are
disappointed with them, make the most of the chance to do something
about it for future assignments
 Don't be afraid to ask for clarification if you don't understand the
comments on a returned essay

30. Get FEED BACK
 If your marks are good, find out why you have done so
well so you can put what you have learnt to good use
next time
 Reflecting on your academic background and goals
Think about your background strengths and consider
areas for improvement. Then jot down answers to
these questions:What is your motivation for studying?
 Did the skills audit at the start highlight any academic
areas you wish to improve?
 Are there any areas you would like to specialise in
during the Foundation Degree programme?

31. Get FEED BACK
 What are your long-term academic ambitions?
 Do you intend to continue your studies in the future?
 Does what you have discovered about the way you learn fit in
with your academic goals?
 After answering the questions above set your academic goals: My
academic goals are: The more you understand yourself, the easier
your studies will become. You will know what areas of knowledge
need improving, what skills need tightening.
The audits you tried our here today are just the start of your
reflective practice journey. They show you how you can examine
your attitudes, your goals, and your day-to-day experiences and
use them to develop yourself both personally and academically.

32. CONTENT
 Definition
 Reflective practice (R P) in different areas
 Techniques in R P
 Process of R P
 Benefits of R P
 Limitation of R P