The Importance Of Critical Reflection On Teaching

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

Reflection and reflective practice can be defined in many ways. Therefore, Mackintosh (2015) argues that the definitions of reflection are unclear, flawed and lack clarity. It can be argued that reflection is reviewing an experience within practice to

“Reflective learning involves assessment and re-assessment of assumptions and critical reflective occurs whenever underlying premises are being questioned”.(Williams 2001) P.29.

Reflection is described as a way of reviewing experiences from practice so that it can be described and analysed and used to change future practice (Bulman and Schutz, 2004).

Effective reflection helps the practitioner to see the situation from an outsider's perspective, so that they can develop a better way to respond to a similar scenario in the future. Reflection is meant to achieve a change in practice, rather than simply repeating the same mistakes (Schon, 1983). Many different models exist for structuring the reflective process. Regardless of the framework used, the reflection models are meant to accomplish three things. They are supposed to promote reflecting on events, self-evaluation and analysis, and a plan to change actions in the future. This Reflective essay will utilize Driscoll's 'The What?' model as its structure (Driscoll, 1994). This model has three components"

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

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

As a teacher who engages with students, it is easy to identify that some critical or creative thinking training is happening, whether one, or both, perhaps one more than the other but the thing that needs to happen that often does not, is the use of reflection

Reflection is a tool that is used within many disciplines including teaching and within the legal profession

Critical Reflection is an important component to getting the most out of, and successfully understanding the link between your CELT experience and the content presented in your course. The programs that you may participate in over the course of your CELT experience exist in response to social concerns and needs, as such, the ability to consider the underlying motivations to these programs is important in order to get the most out of your experience.

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

Effective teachers recognise the importance of reflective practice. A teacher engages in reflective practice by “conducting a critical self-examination of one’s teaching” (Clarke as cited by Eggen & Kauchak, 2010. p. 5). Brookfield (as cited in Marsh, 2010) calls self-reflection a “crucial habit” (p. 102). Whitton, Barker, Nosworthy, Sinclair & Nanlohy (2010) state that reflections are an “integral part” of a being a teacher, that require a “review of your day and the lesson’s successes or failures” (pg. 59). This involves a willingness to examine actions taken to determine whether the teaching had a desired outcome of engaged and increased learning for students (Eggen & Kauchak, 2010). While acknowledging that reflecting on the days activities as important is beneficial the challenge is to translate these reflections into positive actions. This is accomplished by finding areas where the teaching method can be altered to achieve a more positive outcome while taking into account other social factors that may be hindering a students’ progress. Other factors may include baggage from other areas of life such as difficulties at home or troubles with peers. Acknowledging this Bennett (1994) notes that “as society becomes more complex, a corresponding complexity for teachers in the classroom continues to emerge” (p.187). An effective teacher reflects on and determines how accommodate these needs (Marsh, 2010). Further reflection

This paper aims at highlighting the effectiveness of having reflective pedagogy and improves reflective strategy among Iranian teachers and learners as well as to analyze the effect of reflection on performance, while there is an absence of so doing in Iranian pedagogical system.

It’s not easy for every person in the teaching filed to be a good and professional teacher without working hard on adjusting and being able to change and use different methods in teaching that they have not used. As a person who wants to be a great teacher in the future, I find that using different methods of teaching and being able to reflect on my teaching by trying new ways of teaching and getting feedback from my colleagues and my students are essential points that I should keep in mind and accept it. However, there are many teachers use the traditional ways of teaching and are not able to adjust or deal with new ideas. Perhaps, they don’t have strategies to follow up and help them to reflect their own teaching or they are not willing to change. According to the article that I have read which about reflective teaching as a strategy for teacher growth, there are four steps that teachers can follow to get feedback from professional experienced teachers. In this paper, I am going to write a brief summary of the article that I have read about reflective teaching, analyze the greatness and weakness points, and then synthesize my thoughts about the article.