Russell (2013) discusses the education of student teachers in depth, and supports Hebert’s idea (2015) that reflections must be taught in conjunction with practical experience and that the two must be connected in order to lead the student to a higher level of understanding about their teaching.
However, Russell (2013) also examines that reflection can lead to the wrong course of action if the practitioner misjudges the situation. So, in proceeding with different courses of action, there is the chance that there will be a counterproductive outcome if you choose the wrong way of acting. If you look at the impact this has on learning and on the child, it could be construed as a negative consequence of reflection. In the case of special needs children, it is difficult to measure what the lasting damage of an ill-conceived course of action would have on the child.
Russell (2013) analyses Zeichner’s assertions (1996) that reflection on your own teaching is limited when you are training to be a teacher because you are more likely to observe and learn from more experienced teachers. Only when you have finished your training and begin working can you start to gain experience and begin to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
Wegner et al ((2014) looked at Korthagen’s ALACT model (1999) in their article which deals with making improvements in teaching. They discuss the relevance of reflective competence which involves linking theory and practice to become subjective about
Teachscape’s description of “Component 4a: Reflecting on Teaching”, describes how teachers’ reflection on teaching encompasses their thinking after any instructional event. For example, Mrs. Clevinger reflects daily on her lesson plans. Her ability to reflect on each lesson helps her make future lessons better. (Component 4a: Reflecting on Teaching – Use in Future Teaching) Part of her reflection is centered on what works and doesn’t work for her students.
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
Reflective practice is intended to help the teacher evolve and develop. It is an essential aspect of continuing professional development and is seen as a fundamental process in improving the quality of teaching3.
In everything we do, even if it is our best performance, there is always room for improvement. It could not be different in a career such as teaching. Teachers are always self-reflecting to analyze and evaluate their own teaching methods in order to find out what works and what needs to improve. With this information in hand, teachers can come up with strategies to improve certain areas of their teaching. There are many tools teachers can use to self-reflect. As a teacher, I will continually evaluate the effects of my professional decisions and actions on students through self-reflective journals, video recordings, students’ formal and informal assessments, peer support, student and parent evaluation, and suggestion box.
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.
The standards I am strong in are Standard 9: Foundations, Reflective Practice, and Professional Development, Standard 10: Collaboration, Ethics, and Relationships and Standard 4: Instructional Planning. While student teaching I took any available opportunity to reflect on my lessons or the lessons of others with my cooperating teacher, Peggy Hotopp. I also worked each week to focus on a specific teacher education standard. I wanted to make sure that I was growing in all areas of education, while giving myself time to reflect on the week as a whole compared to my day to day reflection with my Peggy. I did this to better myself as an educator and gain valuable insight into the profession from experienced professionals. Peggy often commented on my willingness to reflect on everything I observed or taught. “I appreciate the fact that you are willing to reflect on what you have done and ask questions when you don’t understand” (Hotopp, 2015). This skill will help me improve my instruction as I progress as an educator. It will also help me build on my collaborative skills by reflecting with others.
The objective of this study is to discuss important complexities in teacher's work. According to Churchill, et al (2013) The commitment to teaching brought to the studies and careers of teachers confirms that today's teachers and teachers previously genuinely love to learn and have a great desire to teach. Churchill et al (2013) states that this "deep commitment to humanity and making a difference in the lives of the next generation are among the qualities of people drawn to a career in teaching." (p.4) Some students are able to recall the teacher that transformed their lives and as stated by an experienced teacher and teacher educator "Whatever the situation the influence teachers have on their students I long lasting and can be profound. Good teaching makes a difference in the lives of children and young people." (Pugach, 2009, p.1 in: Churchill, et al, 2013, p.4)
The mentoring interactions portray habitual classroom situations that help thinking over particular Student Teachers’ performance (Clarke, 2001) eliciting, as a consequence, tacit knowledge that is only in the expert teacher’ mind. These genuine interactions between an expert teacher and a student teacher triggers critical reflection processes on teaching experiences and invites to further think of what can be done in similar future situations.
In the excerpt “Forties” from the novel Reverence to Rape, Haskell examines the portrayal of women in the films from the forties. American screenwriters during this time portrayed female protagonists in a negative way. Women were displayed as severely evil and immoral beings. This was a great contrast to the sexually and morally free women in the films created in the thirties.
It is this approach by the government, over the years, which has shifted the views on teacher professionalism. The erosion of creativity and autonomy reduces the need to reflect and as the ATL states ‘Review and reflection may be pointless in an environment where the teacher is or feels powerless to innovate, where decisions and changes are always imposed from above.’
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
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
Marijuana is the dried leaves and flowers of the hemp plant that is smoked as a drug. Marijuana can be used as a safe and effective treatment for certain complications of conditions such as: cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, pain, migraines, glaucoma, and epilepsy. Although marijuana has several health benefits, marijuana has several drawbacks. Marijuana can affect your short-term memory, coordination, learning, movement control and higher cognitive functions. In the following paragraphs I will describe how marijuana affects the brain.
When I think about teachers that I have had in the past, several different ones come to my mind. Each of these educators stands out in my mind for a variety of diverse reasons. Whether it is their sense of humor, their tactfulness, their love of the subject matter, their fanatical and sporadic behavior, or their yearning to be childish themselves, I can still remember at least one quality of every teacher I have ever encountered. Every one of these teachers conveyed subject material to their students just as they were educated and employed to do. However, I trust that every professional in the world has an abundance of opportunity for improvement; teachers could discover and improve themselves merely by having
This reflection paper addresses as a student and counseling professional how I feel as though I have been readily prepared to teach in higher education and areas, concepts, strategies, and thoughts on how I have evolved through this course. This course has made me think more into how the most powerful, durable, and effective agents of educational change are not the policy makers, the curriculum developers or even the education authorities themselves; they are the teachers. It further contends that the quality of the educational changes that teachers have the skills and opportunities to effect will only be as reliable and proficient as the teachers’ individual capacities for reflective practice and the development of self-knowledge (Stepien, 1999). These aspects of teacher development have, historically, been largely overlooked in the preparation and promotion of effective teachers. The emphasis has been more explicitly focused on the development and demonstration of teachers’ understanding of content knowledge and the associated pedagogies and in their capacities to understand their students as individual constructors of knowledge in diverse social contexts (Bosworth, 1999).