Employee Teacher Reflection

Reflection means if when you are teaching and you notice something wrong you change it straight away, or for the next time. Practitioners should always be self critical of past lessons and picking out on not only the good parts, but also parts of a lesson that didn’t go so well. For example in order for the practitioners to improve in their practice they could prepare a reflective journal, this would help them by reflecting back on what they did in the perivious lesson and if an activity didn’t go so well the practitioner could think of different strategies of improving the activity or planning a different activity, but on the similar topic and also providing different recourses in order to improve the activity. Also practitioners and staff members should not assume that their work place will automatically inform them about new developments, changes and updates which affect their work, practitioners must be prepared to be active in maintaining their own knowledge base and to ensure that their practice is in line with current thinking and new theories. Practitioners could this by incorporating an awareness of the needs to update their knowledge constantly into all of their work and activities by using resources such as the internet, journals, and libraries or other professional development, e.g. training, and to check their awareness of new developments in their work and to work with other professionals e.g. there

The reason for this essay is to reflect on a critical incident experience during my six week placement as a student nurse on an orthopedic ward. To explore an event as a critical incident is a value judgment, and the basis of that judgment is the significance attached to the meaning of the incident. Critical incidents are created or produced by the way we look at a situation. Tripp (1993)

Reflection on practice has different meanings, in my view it means constructive criticism: being honest with myself, becoming aware of and understanding my own strengths, and being able to review activities and constantly test assumptions related to our work. These have been my approach to critical reflection throughout the year. This is supported by Brookfield, he says that "Critically reflective teaching happens when we identify and scrutinise the assumptions that undergird how we work” (Brookfield, 1995, pg. 11-13). This is further supported by Ghaye, T & Ghaye, k (Ghaye, 1998); he argued that many teachers have benefited from learning through reflection. Their teaching and understanding of what is possible and less possible, impacts of activities on children’s learning and its boundaries have risen as a result of reflection.

The term “reflection” directly refers to one’s own ability for serious thought or consideration regarding events, which have occurred in the past. Professional bodies and organisations utilise reflective practice within continuous professional development as an effective tool to evoke critical thoughts regarding their own actions. This analysis of one’s own

Passion, knowledge of our duties, responsibility, and preparation are the key factors on which teachers should focus their teaching; these are the essential components that will permit teachers be ready for any situation and run a successful classroom. It is key to engage systematic reflection on our own teaching. Research has shown how deliberate and critical reflection on teaching practices contributes to excellence in our role as teachers, and improved educational outcomes for all children. Teachers are encouraged to regularly evaluate

In their paper “Spielraum and Teaching,” Roth, Lawless, and Masciotra claim that the concept of reflection-in-action, as articulated by Donald Schon (1983, 1987), is only minimally applicable to teaching. Teachers must be “present” to their students, and the unfolding teaching situation in a way that leaves little room for one-the-spot reflection. In this review of their paper, we acknowledge that the authors make important points about the need or flexibility and responsiveness in teaching. However, we argue that Schon’s concept of reflection-in-action is indeed relevant to the practice of teaching. Not only are teachers capable of extensive reflection while they teach, such reflection is essential if they are to make the adjustments required by attentive teaching.

Kottkamp and Osterman (1993) write in Reflective Practice for Educators: Improving Schooling through Professional Development that reflective practice is essential for behavioural change and improvement. They go on to eloquently describe what is needed to reflect effectively: “To gain a new level of insight into personal behaviour, the reflective practitioner assumes a dual stance, being, on one hand, the actor in a drama and, on the other hand, the critic who sits in the audience watching and analysing the entire performance. To achieve

In my opinion, implementing reflective practice approach to professional development in order to expand our knowledge is a challenge. This challenge involves teacher’s ability to “reflect on

The GTCNI have argued that, “Professional knowledge, by its very nature, is organic and, to an extent, evolutionary, reflecting a synthesis of research, experiences gained and expertise shared” (GTCNI, 2007:10). The GTNCI further reinforces this statement when it states that, “Teaching can never be reduced to a set of discrete skills to be mastered in some mechanical process of assimilation” (GTCNI, 2007:5). Teaching today has moved beyond the outdated view that the most important thing for a teacher was solely to have professional knowledge. Professional knowledge encompasses a range of different forms of knowledge such as knowledge on the curriculum and children and pedagogical knowledge e.g. how to manage a classroom amongst many other forms. Whilst this is still of great importance professional knowledge is of no use if you are not able to adapt this knowledge to meet the ever-changing dynamic situations that you will encounter in the classroom. This essay will examine how reflective practice can be unlisted by teachers to ensure that they are meeting the needs of their pupils as well as

Reflective practice has become very popular over the last few decades throughout a variety of professions. In some professions it has become one of the defining features of competence. The wide spread utilization of reflective practice is due to the fact that it ‘rings true’ (Loughran, 2000).

Reflective practice might be understood differently by individual practitioners. There are many different perspectives on ‘Reflection’, what reflective practice involves and how the quality of teaching and learning is impacted by reflective practice (Bengtsson, 1995).

Reflective practice, in this context, is not about just looking at myself in a mirror and accepting what I see blindly, without any question or evaluation. Rather, it is about looking at what I have learned and how I can utilise that learning in my teaching practice.

There is a usual but important cliché for a teacher´s career: a teacher has to be a life-long learner to be an effective teacher. Research on effective teaching over the past two decades has proved that effective practice is related to questioning, reflection and continuous professional development. Reflective practice can be a satisfying experience for a teacher evolution. It covers self-analysis, questioning one owns methods, assumptions about learning, theories as well as one´s attitudes and behaviour as a facilitator and communicator, in short making a deep analysis of the actions. Reflecting on teaching includes the teacher´s thoughts on the successfulness of the lesson planning and the implementation used to teach. Within the time progression the teacher´s reflection should be more precise and he or she could

There has been a rapid increase in the ides of critical reflective practice over the last few decades, (Gould, 2004). Before we look at the value and purpose of reflective practice, it is important to take in account ‘reflective practice’ carries multiple meanings from the idea of professionals engaging in self-analysis to that of engaging in critical dialogue with others. For example, with reference to teacher education, Larrivee, (2000) argues that reflective practice is fusing together personal beliefs and values into a professional identity whereby critical reflection can take place without staying trapped in unexamined assumptions and expectations of our professional practice. Therefore, from this, it can be concluded that as a teaching professional, it is important to develop reflections on ones’ professional and pedagogic knowledge to set aspirational goals for a continuing personal and professional development, in other words, it is a way of life.

Reflection is considered as a vital element of professional practice as it precedes to insight and then subsequent change in practice. The hypothesis of reflection is not new as it can be tracked as far back in the 5th century by the influential Greek philosopher, Socrates and to the 1930s primarily focusing on John Dewey’s work. Dewey is one of the founders of learning from experience. He theorised reflection as ‘active, persistent and careful consideration’ (Dewey, 1933) initiated by a specific situation which was opposing, perplexing or uncertain. One of its most common use today is coming up with a thought, an idea, or opinion made or an observation made as a result of concentration, suggesting in essence a way of thinking in which one looks back and meditate upon (Agnes, 2004).