- http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/reflective-teaching-exploring-our-own-classroom-practice
- http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/reflection/teaching.html
to add to your understanding of reflective practice as it applies to your ideal future classroom. Describe the classroom and it's inhabitants. What and when will you reflect on, how will you build this into your practice?
This discussion will be partial completion of tonights missed class.
How to introduce reflective teaching into your own teaching?
ReplyDelete-One way that I do this is the 2+2 plan, in my building we have set up a schedule where we can observe other teachers and have other teachers observe us. When this observation takes place we are asked to do a 2+2 plan, We write up a report and the first 2 stands for 2 things that we saw that were good. So, in an observation we could say that we saw that the teacher cared for each student because she too the time to greet each student at the door as they entered in. Then we saw the teacher make it a priority to see how they were by taking 10 minutes to do a high/low check in, where the students share their high and low of their day (or night before). Then the other 2+ is to say what you saw the students do. So, for example, when the teacher asked the students to turn to page 56 in their text book, and she wrote it the page number on the white board, I as the observer saw that Little Jonny was in the bathroom when that direction was made, yet when he came back to class, he did not interupt his classmates to find out what page they were on, he looked up at the white board. The second thing I saw a student do was give a neighboring student an extra highlighter, as you were asking the studetns to highlight their notes.
Another aspect of self reflection in teaching is being aware of any repeated comments that you make about your students or self. For example, last October, I kept telling the other teachers in the building that someone always comes to class with something missing, do they not know the procedures by now? Do they not know what they need to bring to class? Then it dawned on me, obviously they do not know these things, otherwise they would have been doing it. So, in the middle of October, we spent a week working on procedures of coming to class. We created an indivual check list of each student of what they needed to bring and they now are receiving participation grades based on this check list. (this would be part of problem based learning).
My old classroom had 30+ students. At times, the class was chaotic and other times they were completely engaged.
ReplyDeleteI tended to reflect when things were not going my way. For instance, when the class would not listen or a group of students had a hard time being near each other. Other instances were when the in-class assignment was not properly completed by most of the class. These were weekly occurrences and made me pause enough to find a solution for each instance.
When students did not comprehend the assignments or homework, we would review the material at a different angle that I would come up with. If the students were having a hard time focusing, I would try to bring more physical breaks in the lessons. Sometimes the students just needed to stand and play a three minute game to get re-focused.
The reflection process usually occurred either at the end of the day or during a break. I would talk it over with my cooperating teacher for feedback and implement immediately.
As we explore reflection more in this class, I see the need to perform this daily. I was doing it when problems arose, so every few days. I think by spending five to ten minutes daily about what worked and what did not would greatly enhance our teaching. This could be even more utilized through various record keeping as to bring it to mind when needed.
Reflective teaching: Exploring our own classroom practice
ReplyDeleteThis article talked about a few methods of self-reflection for teachers that I found interesting. One was journaling, which we all were able to do during student teaching and I thought this did help me to stop and really think deeply about what was going on day to day.
I was fortunate to have quite a few teachers observe me teaching and I learned so much from them from their feedback and comments. One thing that I noticed during our recap sessions after an observation, was that the teacher was always positive, supportive and encouraging, while offering good constructive comments and possible suggestions for improvement. Those were an enormous help to me and it really helped me to immediately reflect on what had just happened. They always asked me what I would do differently, if anything, and I was always able to come up with a way, whether small or more prominent, how I would modify the lesson for the next time. I feel I did a pretty good job of reading my students during the lesson and making mental notes in my head as to what did not work, and what I would change to make it more effective.
Another method of reflection mentioned in the article I read was student feedback. I would try each day to ask students if they had any questions on what we had discussed or learned, or if anyone needed more clarification. At the end of my student teaching, I did make up some surveys that my students took anonymously. I made a conscious point of making the questions very open-ended so that I did not ask any leading questions. I offered my students the opportunity to provide valuable constructive feedback, whether good or bad. I was really surprised by how seriously the kids took the surveys and they all gave really good feedback and comments, which helped me to see what they really liked and valued in a good teacher.
I feel that all good teachers practice reflective teaching to improve the effectiveness of their instructional practices. In addition, I feel that teachers are responsible for their students’ learning and should not blame the students if their instruction is not working. One reason why students are not engaged and learning is because teachers are not using the right approaches to effectively engage the students in the subject they are trying to teach to them. When students are not engaged they can become bored and/or disruptive which leads to classroom behavior problems and teacher frustration. As the articles discussed, when teachers take the time to look at their teaching practices, they can make modifications to their instructional practices to better engage their students.
ReplyDeleteMy classroom is a self-contained special education classroom with students who are dual diagnosed as developmentally delayed and significant emotional disabilities. Therefore, my students often require very specialized and individual instruction. For this reason, I find myself frequently reflecting on what works and does not work on individual and group instruction.
Although I know that reflection is an important part of teaching, I feel that I can improve my reflection process to become a more effective teacher. The biggest area where my reflection process is lacking is its structure. The first article broke the reflection process into basically three main parts that include gathering information, analyzing information, and coming up with a conclusion. For this reason, I feel the most important part for me to start the improvement of my reflection process is by developing a worksheet that outlines the reflection process. Also, I plan on having a goal on the amount of reflections I will complete per day to improve my frequency of reflections.
When I went into student teaching, I had very different ideas from where I stand now in my teaching practices. I believed that the key to learning and student engagement started and ended with the lesson planning and presentation. I worked diligently to have my lessons completed a week in advance. I distributed a unit syllabus that told students what we would be covering on each day, the homework problems for each section, and quickly followed with a pretest. Day One was in the books. I had very little student feedback, and so I assumed that they were just so utterly impressed with my organization that they were left with no questions.
ReplyDeleteDay Two was complete chaos. The class barely completed the warm-up activity in the first half of the class period. When I moved into the lesson for the day so that the students would be able to complete the already assigned homework, I could hear the rumblings of a revolt. The bell rang suddenly -- I could have sworn I had another seven or eight minutes to finish that example, so I made the announcement that they needed to look at the syllabus and complete the assigned problems.
This cycle continued. The warm up time decreased until it was a reasonable period of time, but many of the students would come in disengaged, put their heads down, and I was having trouble motivating them. The class finally boiled over and explained to me that even though I saw the class as being interactive, it was always just one person at the board, and that they wanted to work in groups more. It was a brutal period. At the end of the period, which happened to be the last of the day, my cooperating teacher sat down at the desk in front of me where I had collapsed with my head in my hands. “You did a good job holding it together there and listening to the students. What do you think of everything you heard today?” What followed was a conversation where I reflected and learned from my mistakes. Refusing to reflect had lead me to that high point of difficulty, and learning to reflect allowed me to find better ways to reach my classes. There were more difficult days, and there were more conversations about what had gone well and what had gone poorly. This is perhaps my favorite part of teaching because it is never perfect. As long as we keep looking there is always room for us to improve.
One of the most important things that I learned through student teaching was how important it is to reflect as you go through lessons. My cooperating teacher had a notebook with reflections of lessons. She would write in it almost every day. She would communicate with me about the lessons and then talk about better strategies, what worked, what didn't work, what she can do better etc. Then she would write it down so that she knows how to fix it for next time.
ReplyDeleteWhen I took over the classroom completely for 4 weeks, we would talk at the end of each day and reflect on how the day went,how the lesson plans were etc. She would give me better strategies to try for next time. She also would discuss certain lesson plans before they would happen and give her input of how she had to modify them because of complications from the last time she taught it. Not only did I communicate with my cooperating teacher, The 3rd grade team worked collaboratively and discussed lessons that they could better and give ideas. This team work of reflection and ideas was very helpful and something that I hope to contribute to when I find myself involved in a new team.
As the article I read stated: "reflective practice is a vital component of any practice". This I agree with completely and have experienced how important it is to always reflect. One thing that I can add to my reflection is student involvement. Getting the students thoughts and opinions on lessons is crucial so that you can modify them to meet the needs of students to reach success at their fullest potential. Teaching is about evolving, changing, and modifying. This reflection needs to be a part of daily teachings so that you give your students the best opportunities to succeed.
-Andrea Prusinski
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ReplyDeleteAndrea Kerl
ReplyDeleteBeing reflective is not a new thing for me. As I have been learning more and more about reflective teaching, I realize that I have been reflecting for most of my life. As soon as it happens that one begins to think about their days and what has happened within them, for me teenage years, reflective practice really presents itself. As a teen I remember always looking back on my day and wondering what I could have done differently to make the outcome better. Say if a boy ignored me, how could I make him notice? What did I do wrong when I smiled and then looked away? This reflective practice followed me into adulthood. Often my reflections took the form of poetry of which I have many volumes. I also proceeded to use reflection as a way to help when I coached dance and gymnastics. How did that last lesson go? How can I make little Susie stop screaming when mom leaves? How can I teach dance to teenage boy gymnasts without so much resistance? Many questions that made me think about what kind of answers could be found.
Now as I enter the world of teaching, I am again called to use reflection as a way to help my students and I learn. I have been able to do this on many occasions during student teaching. One such occasion was my individual child study student, Jack (pseudonym). Jack had a hard time behaving in class and getting his work done. I tried to use a chart for him, but it wasn’t working. I reflected daily in my journal my frustrations and disillusionments that I could not make it work. Eventually, after I had talked to trusted colleagues and looked back at my journal and remembered how Jack had reacted at different times of the day and such, I had an epiphany about what needed to be done. The chart I had made required that Jack be good all day before he would get a sticker. He could not make it that long without incident. So after much thought, I realized that Jack needed to have the day broken down into pieces. He would, therefore, get a sticker when he completed each piece of the day without incident. It worked! All Jack needed was for me to break down the day so that he could more easily obtain his goals. I left that classroom in December knowing that I had done some good for that boy and it was all due to reflection on the problem in order to find a solution.
I guess I cannot imagine going through life never reflecting on all the different parts that go into it. It is the same for teaching. But I suggest that reflection cannot ever be of value if one does not keep an open mind. If one is closed minded, then reflection will do them no good. It will be sort of like hitting one’s head against the proverbial wall! Open-mindedness and a willing to learn from mistakes is what will make a great teacher. It is my hope that I will be able to acquire that status.
My ideal classroom would be very similar to what I experienced in student teaching except the physical classroom itself could be modified. The students were an almost equal mixture of boys and girls. Around 70% of the classroom was Hispanic with the remaining portion being a mixture of Asian, White, and Black. The students were all enrolled in the Global Business Academy and interested in entrepreneurship or business in general. Throughout the semester, I discovered that these students preferred way of learning was through lecture followed with a worksheet. It took them out of their comfort zones when I had them do student driven discussions, group projects, and problems that had no obvious or easy answer. I often had to reflect on lessons because they didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. During this experience I learned to reflect-on-practice and in-practice. I didn’t however reflect in all the ways that I should of. During the class and as a result of the above and other publications, I have begun to learn that I did reflect, but not as deeply as I should have.
ReplyDeleteI think that reflection will be a part of all lessons and classrooms. Several times I had a lesson that worked great for two classes then horribly with another. Above when I mentioned that I didn’t reflect as deeply as I should have, I specifically meant that I would solely think of the solutions and not so much about the problem itself and the factors involved.
In my future classroom I’m sure I will need to constantly reflect on the effectiveness of my teaching. I would like to create a formalized system to help me reflect. I’m a visual learner and think something written in the style of a graphic organizer could really help me. Much of the reflection will probably be on the spot, reflection-in-teaching and used to adjust the lesson throughout the day. When this type of reflection isn’t enough I’d like to take notes after each class period (because different things may go wrong in each and I may not remember them) and use that information to evaluate in a written form what went wrong, what specifically needs to be changed/adjusted, and proposed solutions. My solutions may or may not work, but I will have a lot more information to work off of then I did with the “virgin” lesson plan.
I’ve tried to think of what my visual/written reflection piece will look like. There are a few structures I’ve considered, but I’m not sure how well they will work without having a class to use them on. I will need to take these ideas and see what works best once I have my own classroom.
Much like Andrea, I have always been a reflective person. When I was younger my ability or insistence on analyzing every situation and addressing my part was a burden, but as I have gotten older this has turned out to be a blessing both in my professional and personal life. I learned last semester that being reflective in teaching was key to my success no matter what school, classroom, or grade I am teaching.
ReplyDeleteMy classroom during student teaching was very unique to other classrooms. We had only 6 student's and including my cooperating teacher and I there were 4 adults in the classroom at all times. With this many adults you would think that teaching would be less challenging, but I think that having to manage adults was an experience that truly caused me to reflect on myself, my classroom management and my teaching.
My "solo period" started out very frustrating and at first I looked to everyone around me in the classroom as a source of the stress and the frustration. The activities that I was teaching and the subject seemed to be working great! The students were learning and I was really building a relationship with them. I was struggling however to included all of the students in my lessons due to their disabilities and the Para Professionals in the class would do as they wanted most of the day and not help me or the students while I was teaching. I struggled with this for a week or two with only the relief of the fact that it wouldn't last forever. I reflected daily on my teaching and planned accordingly based on my reflections on student progress and learning.
Then during one of my observations my supervising teacher commented that while my teaching seemed great, my true challenge was learning to use the support staff in my room to my advantage. I had never really thought of the fact that I was the part of the problem. I thought this over for a day or so and identified that I had this issue in the past and that if I wanted to be an effective special ed teacher I must learn to use support staff. From this point on I began incorporating them into my lesson plans so that I knew where and what I needed them to be doing. When they weren't helping I would simply ask them to help where I needed them.
My ability to reflect on the situation and use of the reflection to remedy the situation proved helpful in this situation. In the end I developed great relationships with not only my students but the staff as well. I also learned a valuable lesson that I will take with me into my classroom.
Reflective teaching in my own experience helps take a lesson from being ok to be being great. I often reflected in action. In one case I remember starting a group project and in the middle of the class I changed it. By reflecting on the students and their own reaction to the lesson I was able to stop and ask myself what I had done wrong that so many students were lost and the classroom was chaotic. I would often sit after class and reflect on the teaching with another teacher. We would discuss how students worked on the lesson and if they enjoyed it. Then based on their assessment I would be able to see if the lesson took. What does this mean to me and my future classroom? I think that it means that I like to reflect in many different ways. I like to reflect in action as I go as well as after the lesson. I like to talk aloud and often times find myself having a conversation with only myself as I reflect on what worked and what did not. I think that this will allow me to become a strong and flexible teacher. It also will allow me to adapt to each class as they come to me.
ReplyDeleteAs a student teacher, one thing I noticed early and often was the amount of confidence the teachers have that they are doing a great job. At the same time, I noticed the same teachers seem rather defensive, afraid of observation and criticism, and not necessarily open to suggestions, but more than happy to provide ideas, suggestions and criticism of others. I personally do not feel I have the expertise to exude such confidence, nor to ignore suggestions, advice, and yes, criticism. One of the most humbling reflection pieces I ever did was to ask students to give anonymous feedback on my teaching and their learning, by providing note cards and having student comment about what they found interesting or not, what they found effective or not, and what I might try to make their learning experience more positive. I found the students’ opinions very informative and helpful. I also routinely asked my cooperating teacher and supervising teacher for feedback to improve my performance.
ReplyDeleteIn an ideal classroom, I would have a ‘senior’ co-teacher whose knowledge and experience I could leverage when designing and executing lessons. I assume the classroom would have to have 30+ students to keep the student-teacher ratio in line with budget, but I think having a ‘senior’ co-teacher to act as a mentor and to help with daily instruction would be a huge benefit to me and most new teachers. As Ferraro noted in her piece, peer coaching and study teams are gaining popularity as a method to incorporate reflective teaching into everyday practice. In my ideal classroom, I would also want an experienced professional to serve in a similar role to that of the supervising teacher during student teaching. This person would be part cheerleader, providing positive feedback and pointing out that which is going well. I would like to reflect as often as after every period with my ‘senior’ teacher. I would reflect more globally/generally on a weekly basis with my cheerleader-teacher, which would give them enough interaction and observation with my students for them to be able to identify positive and negative trends within my class.
In an ideal classroom, I would have access to what I call a ‘leveraged expert’ a person whose expertise I can draw upon to help me with various specific tasks. One expert might observe a class and suggest ways to introduce more writing or math learning, another might suggest and show me ways to make the lesson more interesting or efficient through the use of technology. We could, subsequent to the lesson, discuss and learn ways to make my lessons more effective.
Finally, ideally, I would have a self-directed portion of my reflections based on journal writing. As Chelsea commented, keeping a journal has immense and irreplaceable value. I would keep a journal of every class (ideally with enough time to update it between periods). Not only would this allow me to chronicle what went well or poorly and hash out potential alternative approaches, but also the journal would allow me to reference particulars of a class, a lesson, and most importantly a student. By keeping this record, in detail, I will hopefully be able to go back and find information that might have otherwise been forgotten, confused, or even distorted with time. On a similar note, by writing about things that went poorly (and why), and possible alternatives, I should better remember problems, and might be able to better recognize potential hazards to avoid while writing future lessons.
~Tom Fagerlin (partial requirement for EDRS 698 for Instructor Alyson Sailor)