2. Students Learning Outcomes
After completion this unit, students will be able to:
1-Systematic reflection throughout the coursework
2- Identify key questions for their own role as novice teachers
3- Understand the issues in becoming a reflective practitioner
3. Content
10.1 Systematic reflection throughout the coursework
10.2 Identify key questions for their own role as novice teachers
10.3 Understand the issues in becoming a reflective practitioner
4. Systematic reflection throughout the
coursework
• the pupil’s previous learning and understanding
• the way the concept was presented
• the context of the lesson (time of day, previous lesson, the pupil’s mood)
• the way the teacher assessed the pupil’s understanding.
5. Give it context. Design reflective activities to support integration of
learning across courses and to engage students with “big questions” related to
community/public issues that matter beyond the classroom. Ideally, reflective
activities should ask students to consider messy, ill-defined problems that do
not have a ‘right’ answer (Moon, 1999). This helps move them towards higher
order thinking and higher levels of reflection.
6. Consider your class size.
• Assessing and providing feedback to reflections require time and
resources. For smaller classes, it might be manageable to assess individual
reflections through journals, logs, and blogs. For larger classes, consider
facilitating whole class discussions and opportunities for peer
feedback. Dividing a large class into smaller groups for discussions and small
group brainstorming sessions can provide the practice and feedback students
need without all the feedback having to come from you, the instructor.
Having students share reflections through ePortfolios is yet another way for
students to receive feedback from peers
7. Model the reflective process.
During class discussions, model the reflective process by asking the kinds of
questions that members of your discipline ask. Explicitly point out how you
support a claim with evidence. As you go through the process, explain how you
are modeling the critical reflection process. Providing students with
a rubric may help them practice the process themselves.
8. Encourage multiple perspectives
Being exposed to different perspectives (through discussions with classmates,
or through resources such readings, websites, case studies, simulations that
represent different points of view), and being able to participate in a dialogue
with others (peers, instructors) about matters of importance is critical to the
reflective thinking process. Having students work on collaborative projects can
facilitate this; they learn to listen to others and consider different approaches to
solving problems.
9. Provide a safe environment
where students can explore and articulate emotional responses. Students might
not mind sharing their knowledge and understanding about content with their
classmates, but may be less inclined to share emotional responses with others.
In these cases, consider splitting up the task so that the descriptive, non-
personal component is done in class and the articulation of learning part is
handed in individually to a TA or instructor.
10. Provide clear marking criteria and exemplars
Clearly state the criteria for success and show students an example of a good
reflection. Explain why the example is a good one (e.g., show how the
reflection provides concrete examples to support the observations, and ties the
observations back to the course content/learning outcome). Provide students
with opportunities to self-assess, or provide peer-feedback using the rubric that
you will use to assess their reflections.
11. Identify key questions for their own role as
novice teachers
What are the main barriers to reflection?
• No time
• Organizational culture
• Lack of skill
• Environment
• Motivation
• Yourself
12. Understand the issues in becoming a reflective
practitioner
• There are particular behaviors and a mindset that accompanies effective
reflective practice. Understanding and applying these allows us to become
reflective practitioners. The process for most people will begin with a
recognition that reflective practice has value and a part to play in our
professional learning. It is also true that it can be easier to act our way into a
new mindset than it might be to change our beliefs. To that end, by adopting
the behaviors of reflective practice, we may find ourselves valuing the
change, and that might result in a new mindset.
13. • Reflective practice takes time and making time for deliberate reflection is an
excellent place to start. Setting aside time for thoughtful reflection may not
be easy and requires a degree of planning for most people. Some are
fortunate or are perhaps forced to spend time alone with their thoughts.
Maybe this results from a long commute or time spent waiting for children to
finish sports training or the like. For those who do not have time for
reflection built into their day by default it is worth scheduling time for it in
the same way that you might schedule a meeting; set up a recurring event
with yourself as the sole attendee.
14. • Now that you have time for your reflective practice consider the
environment in which this will occur. If you are hoping to turn your mind
inwards, it is essential to be in a place that is free of distractions. A quiet
mountain top might be the gold standard but is perhaps not accessible on a
daily basis. What works for the individual will vary, but you should avoid
places or proximity to devices which will draw your attention away from your
reflective mind. Research shows that a phone, even when set to silent, is
likely to be a distraction as you wonder if a notification has arrived.
15. • To be effective, our reflective practice should be grounded in our close
noticing of the events of the day. This requires us to be attentive in the
moment. If we are not looking closely at the impact we are having, at the
reactions our actions cause, at the ripples which are formed by our presence
or the results of our effort, we are likely to fall into ponderous navel-gazing.
Our reflection on our practice as a teacher begins by making space in our
teaching to step back and observe our learners. Our goal should be to notice
them in the act of learning. We can do this through our strategic use of
routines which allow us to become an observer of their learning.
16. • Now is also the ideal time to consider how we may document or capture our
students thinking. One of the strengths of employing a selection of Visible
Thinking Routines is that they include opportunities to capture the thinking
which our teaching is facilitating. By deploying strategies which make our
students’ thinking visible, we gain access to insights which can inform how
we subsequently guide or nudge our students in the desired direction. When
we include this documentation as evidence within our reflective practice, we
enhance the impact that both the capturing of the thinking and the reflection
upon our teaching can have.
17. • This leads us to the question of what we might consider to be evidence of learning.
The evidence gathered from our considered use of thinking routines, student
responses to rich tasks and our observations of students engaged in the act of
learning provides us with invaluable information. Tasks which offer us numerical
data alone provide a different perspective. When we look at a data set, it should lead
us towards questions and wonderings. If a data set makes us wonder why a student
achieved a particular result and what this might reveal about their learning, then it
has a valuable role to play. If shifting the data becomes more important than the
learners, which it purports to measure, we may have forgotten our purpose.
18. • Having observed our learners practising their craft, we can begin to consider what
other information we might include in our reflections. What questions will we ask
that might reveal the thinking that our learners are engaging with? Carefully
designed questions, framed through language that encourages our students to
describe where they are with their thinking, and where they are going are most
effective. Questions which test knowledge or lead the learner to believe their task is
to guess what the teacher is thinking, should be avoided. A question which uncovers
the thought processes of our students is one where the answer is only revealed by
the student’s response. If the answer to the question can be found in a text or
online, then it is not probing our student’s thinking.
19. • Our observations and our questioning reveal a picture of learning in our classroom. We
should be able to discern what our students are understanding from our instruction and also
what is causing confusion. We will also create the conditions necessary for us to notice and
name what we value from and for our students. An honest observation of our practice in
the classroom should reveal who does most of the talking, which students are engaged and
which could have spent the lesson elsewhere. There will be learner behaviours which are
puzzling ad these can be the most interesting fodder for our reflections. The student who
seems to struggle to verbalise a particular letter sound might lead us to a deeper
understanding of the decoding skills being deployed. A group of learners with a shared
misconception of a mathematical concept may reveal an opportunity for us to represent the
idea in a new way. It is only through the close-noticing of what is occurring and the practice
of reflection that we are likely to capitalise on these moments.
20. • Finally, reflective practice is made more effective when it is shared. By sharing our
reflections with others, we engage in a mix of practices which support a deeper
understanding. As discussed previously, explaining our thinking to others allows us
to better understand our own thinking. Engaging in co-construction of reflections
opens our mind to fresh perspectives as our collaborators notice things we may not
or offer a perspective which challenges our stance. And, the process of engaging
with others as a participant in their reflective practice allows us to achieve new
insights into our thinking. Further, we may wish to open our reflections to ongoing
scrutiny by ourselves and possibly others by capturing it in some way. By recording
our reflections, we build an archive which we can review and which can itself
prompt further reflection when we take the time to look back.
