My current Reflective Practice
To be totally honest, my current reflective practice is like this image - done but not clear to see the reflection - you can see that it is a reflection but you can't see what is being reflected.
In other words, it is mostly done in my head and researched but not documented in any sort of reflective journaling. I respond to the needs of my students, discuss things with my colleagues, research ideas and support, and then adapt and add things to my classroom programme as I need. I struggle to find time to document this reflective process, I view my main need / focus to be in the classroom. I need to find the purpose for writing it down / documenting it in some way - who is it for, what will it do in the future, why do I need to do it?
I have always liked the idea of documenting my reflection in some way and have greatly admired the teaching blogs of colleagues. I have learnt a great amount from them and the teachers in the Twitter education community. On occasion, I have attempted to document my thoughts on this blog. I consider myself to be a reflective teacher and can identify with the ideas of Schon's reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action (Finlay 2008), I just don't have any documented evidence other than the actions I put into place, the changes made in the classroom.
The biggest mental hurdle for me has been seeing the purpose - few blogs get comments from others on them - they get read but the engagement and conversation never really gets off the ground. My question for myself is do I need those comments / interactions? Is this a place for me to get my thoughts out of my head? Does it matter if other people don't interact with them?
As Finlay (2008) says "It also tends to involve the individual practitioner in
being self-aware and critically evaluating their own responses to practice situations.
The point is to recapture practice experiences and mull them over critically in order to
gain new understandings and so improve future practice. This is understood as part of the
process of life-long learning."
My aim is to now look at how I reflect and how I document that reflection - Zeichner and Liston's (1996) reflective levels particularly resonated with me - I feel like I already do numbers 1, 2, and 4 (to some extent) but that I need to work on number 3 and 5.
1. Rapid reflection - immediate, ongoing and automatic action by the teacher.
2. Repair – in which a thoughtful teacher makes decisions to alter their behaviour in
response to students’ cues.
3. Review – when a teacher thinks about, discusses or writes about some element of their
teaching.
4. Research – when a teacher engages in more systematic and sustained thinking over
time, perhaps by collecting data or reading research.
5. Retheorizing and reformulating – the process by which a teacher critically examines
their own practice and theories in the light of academic theories.
This blog will be my opportunity to do that - to be my own commenter / to feedback to myself and have that conversation to improve my practise. My first step will be to schedule in a regular time to do this.
My I
To be totally honest, my current reflective practice is like this image - done but not clear to see the reflection - you can see that it is a reflection but you can't see what is being reflected.
In other words, it is mostly done in my head and researched but not documented in any sort of reflective journaling. I respond to the needs of my students, discuss things with my colleagues, research ideas and support, and then adapt and add things to my classroom programme as I need. I struggle to find time to document this reflective process, I view my main need / focus to be in the classroom. I need to find the purpose for writing it down / documenting it in some way - who is it for, what will it do in the future, why do I need to do it?
I have always liked the idea of documenting my reflection in some way and have greatly admired the teaching blogs of colleagues. I have learnt a great amount from them and the teachers in the Twitter education community. On occasion, I have attempted to document my thoughts on this blog. I consider myself to be a reflective teacher and can identify with the ideas of Schon's reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action (Finlay 2008), I just don't have any documented evidence other than the actions I put into place, the changes made in the classroom.
The biggest mental hurdle for me has been seeing the purpose - few blogs get comments from others on them - they get read but the engagement and conversation never really gets off the ground. My question for myself is do I need those comments / interactions? Is this a place for me to get my thoughts out of my head? Does it matter if other people don't interact with them?
As Finlay (2008) says "It also tends to involve the individual practitioner in
being self-aware and critically evaluating their own responses to practice situations.
The point is to recapture practice experiences and mull them over critically in order to
gain new understandings and so improve future practice. This is understood as part of the
process of life-long learning."
My aim is to now look at how I reflect and how I document that reflection - Zeichner and Liston's (1996) reflective levels particularly resonated with me - I feel like I already do numbers 1, 2, and 4 (to some extent) but that I need to work on number 3 and 5.
1. Rapid reflection - immediate, ongoing and automatic action by the teacher.
2. Repair – in which a thoughtful teacher makes decisions to alter their behaviour in
response to students’ cues.
3. Review – when a teacher thinks about, discusses or writes about some element of their
teaching.
4. Research – when a teacher engages in more systematic and sustained thinking over
time, perhaps by collecting data or reading research.
5. Retheorizing and reformulating – the process by which a teacher critically examines
their own practice and theories in the light of academic theories.
This blog will be my opportunity to do that - to be my own commenter / to feedback to myself and have that conversation to improve my practise. My first step will be to schedule in a regular time to do this.
My I
Very nice! I like how you could critically reflect on your self
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. I could not have (and haven't on my blog) said it any better. I feel exactly as you do. All thinking and no evidence. In the past I photocopied my own resources or planning diary notes as evidence. Lets see how this Blogging goes. Once again it the habit and I prefer pen and paper :)-
ReplyDeleteOn further research I found an informative synthesis (thanks to MindLab course for reigniting the flicker of curiosity for learning once again; improving my thought processes and reminding me WHY I chose to change my profession to teaching). https://www.dropbox.com/s/prmop9qv55i1ta0/The%20Future%20of%20Learning%202018.pdf?dl=0
DeleteAnd resonated with the importance of narrative inquiry (page -6); Dewey's observation on misleading inferences (pg-3); highlights on page 7. In short, a fantastic article that I feel I needed to know about when I started teaching. First bullet point in Highlights is what Mark Treadwelll discussed with us yesterday. Using micro-lessons. It makes a lot of sense to follow that in this knowledge society that we are raising our kids in.
I sure am a convert - even if I may use pen-n-paper I still will be a narrator.
Great flow diagram on pg-636 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814035356
I hope you find these equally motivating.
Great post Jennie. (I have tried to comment before, but it appeared that I was not logged into the Google+ community). I like that you have provided yourself a motivating platform with a metaphorical picture, to challenge yourself to write reflectively with the goal of matching your "Twitter" colleagues. Kia kaha. (I miss the Thursday classes). Gina :-)
ReplyDeleteKia ora Jennie. I love the succinct way in which you have illustrated your reflective journey in this blog post. The challenge to yourself to record your reflections on a platform such as this blog or twitter is awesome. I also find written reflection a hard discipline to maintain. We are actually reflecting all day in this job aren't we? I am often hearing my colleagues and myself saying things such as, "well that lesson totally bombed, lets all regroup and try something else."
ReplyDelete"What I am doing for this child just isn't work. I wonder if ________ (name of an expert) could help." etc.
Thank you for some brilliant insights into where you are at in your reflective journey.
Ngā mihi,
Jared Fretwell