04E Inquire Within (1)

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Inquire Within: Reflective Practice in Teaching. Valley Peters, COABE 2004 1

Inquire Within:Reflective Practice in Teaching

A Presentation by Valley PetersFor the Teton Literacy Program

COABE April 28, 2004


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Why is Reflective Practice important?

With the variability of qualifications, teacher education, and professional

development opportunities, reflection enables teachers and administrators a lowand efficient method by which to improve program quality.

Reflection is highly individualized and its benefits directly affect local practitiostudentsand programs. Its not a top-down approach, rather it grows fromobservations, issues, and needs that are unique to the people involved.

Teachers develop capacity for problem solving on the spot, as well as a firm badecision making by using reflection in action and reflection on action.

Teachers can become models for students and integrate reflection into their clas thus leading to improved critical thinking skills and problem solving among adlearners.

After continued practice, teachers develop awareness of patterns in their behaviareas of strength and weakness, as well as their students behavior and needs.

Kathleen Bailey states, the main value of reflective teaching lies in its potential toclarify our thinking. Practitioners acquire a way of thinking that promotesawareness, innovation, experimentation, and growth. Practitioners are less likecaught in a web of dependency, stagnation, and repetition of ineffective practice

Reflection helps us to put the pieces together to become more effective educators


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What is Reflective Practice?

a reflective approach to teaching, that is, one inwhich teachers and student teachers collect data about

teaching, examine their attitudes, beliefs, assumptions,and teaching practices, and use the information obtainedas a basis for critical reflection about teaching.

Jack Richards and Charles Lockhar

Viewing teachers as reflective practitioners assumes that teachers can both pose and solve problems related to their educational practice. Daily, hourly, even minute byminute, teachers attempt to solve problems that arise in the classroom. The way in which they solve thoseproblems is affected by how they pose or frame theproblem. Reflective teachers think both about how theyframe and then how to solve the problem at hand.

Kenneth M. Zeichner and Daniel P. Liston

In other words Reflective practice is aprocess of putting ones thoughts about and experience

with, teaching onto paper in order to examine and learn from them.Note There is no ultimate method or one prescribed way to do reflective practice. Mdifferent approaches have been created by individual researchers and practitioners ba their program and their needs.

Key figures in the Development of Reflective Practice:Taken from Zeichner and Liston

1. John Dewey, How We Think, 1933

Foundational ideas: He distinguishes between action that is routine and action treflective. He details three essential characteristics: open-mindedness, responsiand wholeheartedness.

2. Donald Schon, The Reflective Practitioner, 1983Foundational idea: He differentiates betweenreflection in action andreflection onaction.


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REFLECTION IN ACTION

practitioners attempt to frame and solve problems on the spot. When teaching, we frequently encounter anunexpected student reaction or perception. While we are teaching we attempt to adjust our instruction to takeinto account these reactions. Schon called this reflectionin action.

Zeichner and Liston

While teaching, ask yourself questions such as: How do I know what the students are learning? What do I see or hear? What is missing that the students need? Why are we doing this? What do I want them to learn? What can I change at this moment to adjust?

REFLECTION ON ACTIONIn teaching, reflection on action occurs before a lessonwhen we plan for and think about our lesson and afterinstruction when we consider what occurred.

Zeichner and Liston

Describe Analyze Take Intelligent ActionThis three step process provides a model for reflection on action. It works equally wenewcomers to reflective practice, as well as seasoned practitioners.

For instructors: After class, take time to sit down that night or the next day (the soonbetter!) to write about the class in a journal only for this purpose. Usually when I do there are immediately things that strike me about what happened during the class andwith something that either was really great or something that puzzled me and wentcompletely haywire! In your reflection,explore one event or puzzle that youd like to gain adeeper understanding of what occurred. What was it about your teaching that produc those results?

For administrators: Use this tool after program meetings. Target the part of the meet that did not go as expected, a breakdown in communication, or a particularly successdiscussion. How/Why did it happen?


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The Journaling Process

DESCRIBEFirst, choose a short segment of the class or meeting in which the puzzling or successevent occurred and describe the situation in detail. You shouldnt describe the whole cla ormeeting, focus in on the part that you have questions about and want to learn from.

Educator Claire Stanley suggests Be choosy about what you describe. Take on the hat ofa detective or researcher try to see that segment of theclass with the eyes of a participant-observer. put on thelens of discernment in order to decide what details areimportant and which are not.

Guiding questions: What did individuals do or say? (self and students) What were my emotional reactions? What triggered them? What worked, what didnt, why? What evidence of student learning did I see?

ANALYZE/INTERPRET

This is the part of the process where we try to figure out what happened and why. Animportant part of this is trying to come up with several explanations for what happene try to see it through several perspectives. I find it really helpful to ask myself questions aanswer them.

During this stage, Stanley urged us to take on different identities or visualize yourself sittingin different positions in the classroom in order to gainnew explanations for what was happening.

Guiding Questions: What are other ways to look at this? What theories could help me understand this better? Does this connect to past learning or teaching experiences? Where are these emotions coming from? Can I examine this more deeply?


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TAKE INTELLIGENT ACTIONThis is where we take our observations and analysis and we figure out how to make ain the classroom environment. It is important to take thoughtful action based on thereasons that led to the event we are trying to understand. It has helped me to visualizoutcome that is desired and then imagine several ways of reaching that outcome. We to take action that is intelligent, in that it is based on several possibilities. Write out wyou intend to do in your next class to address the puzzle youre trying to understand.

Stanley encourages teachers to develop both the capacity for analysis and the capacityfor taking intelligent action based on the analysis. Thismay mean coming up with more than one intelligentaction. It also means learning to respond to a situationrather than react to it.

Guiding Questions: Does this action target one or multiple dimensions of the issue? If there are several actions, which can I try right away and which will I need mo

information or preparation before instituting?

Teton Literacy Program: An Example of Reflective Practice in Adult Edu

Teachers engage in various activities that promote awareness and questioning of theirpractice. These include: journaling on issues of concern using the Describe-Analyze-Take Action model;

journals are shared with supervisor who provides feedback professional readings and discussion of ideas that can be incorporated into the

program observations and debriefing meetings with supervisor teacher self evaluation at the end of each session self observation by video camera (will be incorporated into our future sessions

In order for this to be successful 1. Before teachers are hired, we stress our commitment to reflective practice

the expectations of teachers within the program.2. We pay teachers for professional development time.3. We provide training in the process of reflection and ongoing support.

For information about our program, please e-mail me at [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Additional Reflective ActivitiesReflective journaling offers a consistent way to examine what your teaching practice.However, it is also important to look deeply at the beliefs that underlie your practice.

The following activities enable the practitioner to go beneath the surface and examineassumptions are informing their actions.

1. What do you value as a teacher or program administrator? Write as many stateas possible to flush out unexamined beliefs.

2. Teachers (or program administrators) create a metaphor that captures their belieabout teaching and learning. After writing, go back to your metaphor and askyourself:What does this say about my beliefs about learning? The environment that I

believe best supports learning? The students role in learning? My role in learning?3. Create a collage that represents your ideal approach to teaching. How does you

fit with your current practice? What are the areas that need to be reconciled? Hwill you make those changes?

4. Try Gabriels Wake Em Up Quest for Learner-Centered Instruction: An InternetWebQuest on Reflection. Gabriel Skop at Saratov State University developed thiwebsite that guides teachers through four phases of reflective thought.The URL is: http://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/webreflectiga.html

References

Bailey, Kathleen M. Reflective Teaching: Situating Our Stories. Asian Journal ofEnglish Language Teaching Vol. 7, 1997, pp. 1-19.

Florez, MaryAnn Cunningham. Reflective Teaching Practice in Adult ESL Settings.ERIC, 2001. EDO-LE-01-01.

Freese, Anne Reilly. Developing Reflective Teaching Practice. Center for Teaching &Learning, Colorado State University., Fall 1999.

Imel, Susan. Reflective Practice in Adult Education. ERIC, 1992. ED 346319.

Richards, Jack C. and Charles Lockhart. Reflective Teaching in Second LanguageClassrooms. Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Zeichner, Kenneth M. and Daniel P. Liston. Reflective Teaching: An Introduction.Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1996.
http://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/webreflectiga.htmlhttp://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/webreflectiga.htmlhttp://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/webreflectiga.htmlhttp://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/fil/pages/webreflectiga.html

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04E Inquire Within (1)